


Threshold

by kyluxtrashcompactor



Series: structural fabrications [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Wedding Fluff, and a ton of feels, just... mostly fluff and smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2018-11-07 01:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyluxtrashcompactor/pseuds/kyluxtrashcompactor
Summary: Eleven months ago, Armitage Hux fabricated a fiancé, never expecting to have to drag him to a funeral in Georgia, pretending to be something they weren't. The problem was, Ben Solo was everything Hux had ever wanted.Ben Solo had hidden his love for his roommate for years, thinking that someone as perfect as Hux would never want a broken soldier like him. But he was wrong.The engagement might have been fake, but the love was real, and now their wedding will be too.The conclusion of the Structural Fabrications series.





	1. Heading In The Right Direction

**Author's Note:**

> Nsfw. Hide yer phones on the train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There has been a full series minor character edit in this fic. It is not important to the story.

It is bright outside, the noon sun a blazing white-yellow in a steel blue sky; that kind of sky, Ben thinks, makes all the colors—tree leaves, grass, myriad flower petals—look more deeply saturated, at the pinnacle of their natural expression.

The air is still in the summer heat, which beats down on Ben’s shoulders, making sweat roll down the curve of his spine, and his t-shirt clings to him, uncomfortably itchy with the dust and debris of yard work. He can’t hear the sound of the birds over the growl of the lawnmower, and his hands are slick on the handle and cramped from holding it down so long. Hux had suggested headphones, to spare his ears, but Ben doesn’t mind the noise; it isn’t a city sound. And he loves the smell of cut grass, even if flying stems are plastered to his sweat-damp, bare legs and snaking down into his socks.

He makes his last turn near the fence marking the back edge of their property, then guides the lawn mower back toward the patio where Hux is fussing over his plants; he hadn’t planted his garden yet, but he had accumulated at least a dozen glazed pots full of vibrant flowers the names of which had gone in one of Ben’s ears and right out the other. The arrangements are aesthetic, almost an art, but they aren’t as pleasing as the sight of Hux in a wide-brimmed straw hat and a pair of jean shorts that ride up on his pale thighs when he bends over. There’s something about that vision that feels so deliciously Southern, so different from the man who goes to work in a suit and tie five days a week.

Ben passes over the final patch of over-long grass, and lets go of the handle with a grateful snap. The machine sputters into silence, and Hux straightens, his attention turning to Ben, who flexes his hands to regain the feeling in his fingers. Hux pushes his hat back with one hand, swiping his brow with a purple and black bandana from his pocket; Ben had tried to argue that Hux was missing the purpose of that particular headgear, but Hux had just huffed and said he had no intention of looking like a biker.

Ben, less leery of appearance, pulls the bottom hem of his tank-top up and mops his face with it. His skin feels super-heated, and he can almost smell his sunburn. Letting his shirt fall back, he crosses the freshly-mowed lawn to the patio, where Hux has picked up a water hose to spray the grass shavings off the rust-red brick.

Ben’s eye catches on a full glass of water sitting on their patio table, shielded from the sun by a wide umbrella, but sweating on the treated wood surface. Ice cubes are just barely apparent, diminished shapes drifting on the surface. Hux must have timed filling it and bringing it out with his estimate of how long it would take Ben to finish the lawn.

Smiling at yet another way Hux is so subtly in tune with him, Ben takes a long drink, and the water is still so cold that it freezes the roof of his mouth. He drains the water in two long swallows, then swipes the condensation off to rub over his stinging cheeks. Leaving the glass on the table, he turns to see Hux facing away, still rinsing off the patio.

None of this quite feels real; nothing about the time that has passed since the dark, cold places in Ben’s soul left by the trauma of his past had allowed Hux’s support to take root, start to flourish, much like the passage of winter into spring. He finds himself crossing the space between him and Hux, wrapping both arms around that narrow waist and pulling Hux against his sweat-damp torso.

Hux squawks, the stream of water from the hose shooting out into the lawn as his hand spasms in alarm. He cranes his head, glowering at Ben, and tries to shrug him off. “You’re filthy!” he complains, but when Ben nuzzles his sun-warmed neck, Hux’s body betrays his vexation and he molds himself against Ben.

Ben trails kisses up Hux’s soft neck, and Hux makes a sound somewhere between exasperation and pleasure, tilting his head back to offer more of an inviting expanse for Ben’s lips. The brim of Hux’s hat catches on Ben’s shoulder, starts to topple off his head before Hux’s hand flies to the top, smashing it back down.

“I’m trying to finish the yard work, you heathen,” Hux growls, wriggling again in Ben’s grasp. “And you need a shower. We have to leave for the airport in four hours.”  

“We’ll be ready to go in half that,” Ben purrs, sliding a palm across Hux’s flat stomach, tucking his fingers beneath and thumbing at the soft hair below Hux’s navel, heedless of the neighbors.

Hux flinches, ticklish, and laughs as the hand holding his hat in place flies to Ben’s forearm, trying to push his hand away. Ben just goes with the downward force, maneuvering his hand beneath the waistband of Hux’s shorts, palming his cock through his underwear.

Hux’s hold on Ben’s arm relents and he’s boneless in Ben’s arms just long enough to sway his hips into Ben’s touch, and then his soft, needy groan turns into a growl. Before Ben can react, Hux turns the hand with the water hose and blasts him with cold spray.

Ben gasps, but lightning-fast reflexes have his hand on Hux’s wrist in a split second, turning it so the hose is aimed at Hux, soaking the front of his shirt and eliciting a high-pitched yowl. Hux drops the hose, and he and Ben break apart, both laughing and trying to swipe water from their faces.

“Damnit, Ben,” Hux tries to say sternly, voice wavering with amusement. He leans down to pick his fallen hat up from the wet patio, thumping moisture off of it. Water is pooling across the brick around Hux’s bare feet. “Can’t you be an adult for one minute?” There’s no rancor in the request, and when Hux looks up from tending his abused hat, he meets Ben’s gaze with a smile.

Ben snorts, reaching out and closing his hands around Hux’s waist, tugging him forward to wrap him in his arms, letting both hands drift without hesitation to Hux’s ass. “I’m getting married in five days,” he says, touching his nose to Hux’s, whose pale golden-red eyelashes glimmer in the sunlight with tiny beads of water. “I’ll have to be an adult forever, after that.”

Hux's smile broadens, his eyes the shade of dark green they get when he’s happy. Ben steals a kiss, though Hux mumbles against his lips, “Why do I feel like you growing up is not part of the deal?”

Ben responds with a smirk, tilting his chin to capture Hux’s lips again; Hux submits to the kiss with a tiny, affronted huff, but makes no move to pull away. One arm hangs limp at his side, clutching the brim of his hat, and the other snakes around Ben’s waist, drifting along the muscles of his back, more a caress than a simple touch as his hips cant closer. Ben’s tongue parts Hux’s lips, his velvet mouth tasting of coffee, with just the barest hint of peppermint to cover it.

Ben brings one hand around to Hux’s front, lifting his wet shirt up enough to thumb the button of his shorts open, draws the zipper down just a notch before Hux’s fingernails dig into his shoulder and his body presses tight along Ben’s, trapping Ben’s hand helplessly between them. Hux breaks their kiss.

“Ben,” he admonishes breathlessly, and starts to say more, but Ben cuts him off with another kiss, moving both hands to his hips as he starts to walk backward, guiding them by memory to toward the garden furniture arranged at the edge of the patio. Hux goes willingly, as though he’s in a daze, drunk on the physical contact; their close, careful shift backward brings their hips together at every other step, and Ben can feel Hux’s cock stiffening gradually.

The edge of the wooden table between them and the loveseat bashes hard into Ben’s calf, and he hears the empty glass he’d left there wobble and fall over, rolling slowly and shattering on the brick below. Hux pulls away from Ben, craning his head to look, instantly alert to the destruction of his glassware, but Ben reclaims his attention with a hand on his face. Hux makes a soft sound of protest which turns into a gasp when Ben sinks down on the wicker loveseat and pulls Hux down to straddle his lap.

Looping his arms around Ben’s neck, Hux hums with pleasure as Ben traces the slender lines of his throat with lips and the tip of his tongue. Ben’s head is hazy, swimming with desire, and he’s only vaguely aware of the environment: the way the wicker couch creaks with the compulsive rut of their hips against one another, the trickling of water pooling against the house from the forgotten water hose, the trill of birds in the trees. Ben’s tongue is just tracing the curve of Hux’s collarbone when a sliding glass door opens next door, and voices spill out into the neighboring yard, drowning out Hux’s sigh.

Hux groans, tilting his head down to take Ben’s earlobe in his teeth, sucking on it gently, pulling a full-body shudder from Ben, who tucks a hand into the back of Hux’s loosened shorts, a finger moving to Hux’s entrance.

“Ben…,” Hux mewls, breath hot on Ben’s ear. “We can’t. It’s the middle of the day, and the neighbors are right there!”

Kissing the underside of Hux’s jaw, his own breathing shallow, Ben circles Hux’s rim teasingly, his other hand dropping from Hux’s back to grope for the space between the couch cushions where he’s fairly sure a small bottle of lube had disappeared the last time they’d found themselves in this situation.

Hux turns his head to see why he’s being jostled this way, his whole body quivering against Ben’s. Next door, there’s the unmistakable sound of a can being popped open, and the clang of metal. The scent of charcoal burning wafts across the lawn.

“What are you doing?” Hux asks, quizzical.

Ben doesn’t have to answer verbally, because at that moment he finds what he’s searching for, wedged beneath the cushion beside them. Hux sees it when Ben brings it up, biting his bottom lip; his pupils are wide, blending with the depth of green that surrounds them; ever since buying their house, Ben had found that Hux had quite a fetish for exhibitionism. It had started with leaving their bedroom curtains open on the side that faced the backyard, to leaving the street-side curtains open late at night while their bathroom light was on, just enough illumination to make out Hux’s pale body as he rode Ben, putting on every bit the show. The last such adventure had been right here on this couch several evenings ago, Hux in Ben’s lap, the only modesty he had bothered with being a silk robe that slipped down over his shoulders and nothing to hide the way his body moved over Ben’s.

Hux plays coy, however, as Ben flicks the top open, turning the bottle upside down to let some of the warm liquid drizzle onto his fingers. “Ben, we _can’t_ ,” he purrs without an ounce of rejection in his tone. “What if the neighbors see?” He punctuates that faux worry by rolling his hips forward, rubbing his erection against Ben’s, the friction making Ben suck in a breath, his cock jump.

Ben nips Hux’s earlobe, tugging it with his teeth before tonguing it as he exchanges one hand for the other down the back of Hux’s shorts. “You mean you don’t want the neighbors to know what a needy slut you are?” he growls softly in Hux’s ear. Words like that still make Ben’s pulse flare nervously to say, but the sound Hux makes, full of lust, is enough to make the effort worth it.

He works the now-slicked fingers beneath the waistband of Hux’s underwear as Hux draws his half-open zipper down. His cock is flushed red, long and thick, held flush against his hip by the red cotton of his briefs until Hux shoves the hem down enough to free it. He caresses the head as Ben watches, fingers tracing the length delicately as his eyelids flutter.

“I want you to fuck me right here,” Hux breathes. “I don’t care who sees.”

Ben smirks, playing along for the moment, and kisses him; Hux returns it with passion, hand snaking into Ben’s still-damp hair and raking it back with his fingers. When Ben slides a thick finger fully inside Hux, Hux’s hand tightens into a fist, tugging Ben’s head back to nip at his neck. It’s almost too hard, and Ben pulls back just enough to give him a dark, chiding look.

“Wedding pictures. Five days. No bruises.”

Hux whines, licks a stripe up Ben’s throat instead. “At least not where anyone can see,” Hux amends with a smirk, and his hand slips under Ben’s t-shirt, pushing it up and exposing his torso until he can caress Ben’s nipple, squeezing and circling it with his thumb as Ben works his finger in and out. Hux isn’t tight, just yet; they’d had sex twice today already: once when they’d first woken, and again in the kitchen, barely an hour later. The closer their wedding got, the more inexplicably carnal their lust for each other had become.

Just as Ben works a third finger inside him, he strokes Hux’s prostate by easy habit, making Hux yelp. Too loudly for the middle of the day. There’s a noticeable lull in the boisterous conversation beyond the fence, and both of them freeze, with Hux shivering with laughter and Ben hiding his nose in Hux’s neck.

“You guys all right over there?” a male voice calls out. It sounds like Alex, who owns the place next door.

Ben knows that if their neighbor were to be hovering at the edge of the fence, balancing on his toes, he’d see over, and would know _just_ how they are.

“We’re good!” Hux shouts, and Ben winces at the volume in his ear, though he grins as Hux hides his laughter in Ben’s hair.

“You two oughta come over and have a steak and a beer!” Alex calls out cheerfully again.

Hux lifts his face from Ben’s hair, rolls back on Ben’s fingers and mostly stifles a groan before he calls out again, voice not quite as clear: “Got a plane to catch. Another time.”

“I’ll be counting on it,” Alex calls, and then the sound of another can being cracked up sounds across the yard, and a door slides open, more voices spilling out into the yard, laughing. Slowly, Ben draws his fingers out, and Hux’s gaze snaps to him.

“Don’t stop,” he begs, catching at Ben’s arm to keep him from drawing away.

Ben snorts. “We just had a conversation with our neighbor with my fingers up your ass. Go inside.”

“I don’t want to go inside,” Hux complains, though Ben can tell that at the moment Hux is just playing a role that turns him on. Not far below the surface, Hux truly cares what their neighbors think, and Ben imagines they’re pushing the limit of his self-indulgence with this display.

He’s proven correct when Ben nudges his thighs up, coaxing Hux out of his lap; Hux obeys without further protest, zipping his shorts half way up and tugging his shirt down over his erection. He walks toward the patio door, glancing at Ben over his shoulder to make sure he’s following.

They make it just inside the sliding glass door, to the moment when it snicks closed, before they come together again; Hux’s fingers pull hard at the hem of Ben’s shirt, and Ben lifts his arms and tugs it off. Deft fingers are then undoing Ben’s fly, dropping his pants to the floor. Ben kicks them away as he toes off his shoes, and the rest of Hux’s clothes join them in a haphazard pile.

Hux’s breathless kiss is ragged against Ben’s lips, his hands kneading into the flesh of Ben’s ass as he tries to tug him impossibly closer. “Where…” he begins, then squeaks in surprise as Ben lifts him up effortlessly to the dining room table, shoving his thighs apart and guiding them around his hips.

“Ben,” Hux says. “People eat on this table. It was my birthday present.”

Ben smiles, caressing Hux’s swollen cock with one large hand. True, the table had been the first gift Ben had ever given him, besides the dogtags nestled at Hux’s breast; the table had been meant to be the first step toward them being a family, having something to bring their broken families together around, but, just now, Ben can’t think of a better use for it.

Placing one hand on Hux’s chest, Ben pushes back, gently. Objecting as he had been a moment before, Hux falls back willingly enough, his arousal making him arch into Ben’s touch as fingers glide over his belly. Bending down, Ben retrieves the lube from the floor where he’d dropped it, slicks himself, then grips Hux beneath his knees, tugging him down the table until he can lift his legs up, heels against Ben’s shoulders. With one long stroke, Ben is inside him for the third time today; Hux throws his head back, crying out, arms splayed beside him so he can grip the edges of his precious table as Ben thrusts into him relentlessly. Sunlight streams in through the open window, Ben’s form casting a long shadow over Hux; Ben wants it to be like this always: where they need each other so badly that it hurts, but can have each other whenever they want.

Ben slows his pace after the first few seconds, wanting to draw out Hux’s fantasy. With every stroke, he feeds Hux’s imagination. “The privacy fence doesn’t go around the back; anyone could be watching through the trees.”

Hux shivers, groaning, as Ben continues with a snap of his hips, then longer strokes. “Or one of neighbors could need us, know we were out back. Come around and see us like this.”

Hux is panting now, pre-come glistening and slick on his belly. Ben strokes a thumb through it, circles the flared head of Hux’s cock. “We’d never be able to invite them here for dinner.” He starts to quicken his pace, the scenario stirring his own blood, making his pulse race. “They’d know what we did. Wouldn’t able to stop seeing you spread like this on the table.”

Hux comes with a choked cry, fingers white-knuckled on the edges of the table, Ben’s fist around his cock, stroking him through it at the rhythm he is thrusting into him. Ben comes mere seconds later; they are like this, together, one of them never far from the other, as though completion of one another’s need is all they crave for release.

Neither of them move for a moment, panting, flushed, and then Ben slowly guides Hux’s legs down until they’re at his waist. He leans down as he begins to go soft inside and kisses Hux’s taut belly, which is still expanding and contracting with his rapid breathing.

“We’re never going to make it to Georgia in time, at this rate,” Ben murmurs.

Hux remains draped across the table, gives Ben a weak squeeze with his legs before struggling to sit up, looping his arms lazily around Ben’s neck. It brings their eyes close together, Hux’s still dark green. “We have to get there,” Hux says, drowsily. “Because there is no way I’m not marrying you.”

That declaration, for some inexplicable reason, makes Ben blush, and he leans in to kiss Hux’s neck one more time before untangling himself from Hux’s long legs. He stoops down to gather the discarded clothes from the floor as Hux’s bare feet touch down beside him.

“Shit,” Hux mutters.

Ben glances up, follows Hux’s gaze to the patio door, suddenly self conscious as his naked reflection moves with him. A brief spike of adrenaline courses through him, thinking Hux must have seen someone _actually_ looking through their window, but then he sees what has caught Hux’s attention. The hose had been left running, and the patio, which must not be exactly as even as it appears, is now a pool of water on one side, immersing the bases of Hux’s flowerpots.

Hux tugs his shorts on, not bothering with underwear, and slips out the patio door to turn the water off. Ben follows him a moment later, and it takes them half an hour to set the backyard to rights; their sudden need for one another had left a swath of destruction in its wake: a lawn mower abandoned in the sun, silt staining the red brick patio, broken glass, grass everywhere, and wet footprints on the dining room floor. By the time they’ve managed to clean up, start a load of laundry, and rush through a shower, Hux is wound with anxiety and they are running behind schedule.

“We have to be at the airport two hours ahead of time,” Hux tells Ben while rubbing his hair dry with a towel.

Ben makes a face at him in the vanity mirror. “I have traveled before, you know.”

Hux hangs up his towel, making a bunched mess of it in his nervous haste, and Ben straightens it for him, lining up the edges so it will dry properly and conform to Hux’s standards of symmetry.

“I know that,” Hux says, exasperated, running fingers through his dark red hair and pushing it back from his face. It’s overlong, but Hux has insisted he can’t get it trimmed until just before the wedding, so it’s the perfect length. “I know, but we can’t miss _this_ plane, Ben.”

“I’m aware,” Ben says with a smile, his own voice calm where Hux’s is high; Ben has found they tend to balance one another this way, like anchors to sanity. “We’re not going to miss the plane.”

Hux is mid-stride into the bedroom when he rounds on Ben. “But what if it’s cancelled for some reason? What if there’s a storm or…I don’t know, the flight crew doesn’t show up?”

Ben tries to suppress a laugh, which comes across as an amused grunt. “Then we’ll leave tomorrow.” He walks into the bedroom, kissing Hux’s cheek as he passes.

Hux frowns, starting to pull clothes out of the dresser and struggle into them. He’s in such a hurry that he gets his foot caught in one leg of his jeans and falls backward onto the bed. “We can’t _go tomorrow_ ,” Hux growls, squirming into his jeans. “We’re supposed to help Ma get things ready before your family gets there Tuesday. God only knows what that means. We might have to…bake casseroles or something.”

This does make Ben laugh, muffled by the shirt he pulls over his head. He recalls the last time they’d been to Georgia, though the circumstances had been more dire; Hux’s father had just passed away, and Ben had accompanied Hux to the wake as his fake fiancé, meant to impress his family. There had indeed been a copious number of casseroles.

There had also been stolen moments alone, play-acted embraces that had taken on meaning, kisses that were anything but fake, confessions, and then two friends had come home as lovers. And that whirlwind had never stopped spinning.

Ben runs his fingers through his hair, knotting it away from his face with a band. “We might have to milk the goats and feed the chickens too,” he drawls in a poorly mimicked Southern accent. When Hux is anxious, or angry, his own Georgia twang comes out, and Ben can’t help himself.

Hux turns from examining the contents of one of their four brand new suitcases, and launches something at Ben, who catches it mid-throw. It’s the unopened bottle of lube they’d bought for this trip. More precisely, for their honeymoon.

“Put that away,” Hux snarls. “No sex for you.”

Ben tosses it on the bed with a smirk, sitting down to tug shoes and socks on. Sure enough, the bottle disappears back into the suitcase a moment later. Millicent, who has thus far been observing the proceedings with interest, pounces on the bed, sniffing one of the open bags before climbing into it and shaping herself into a prim bread-loaf.

Hux instantly reaches out and picks her up, cuddling her to his chest. “You can’t go, sweetheart,” he tells her, and Ben thinks he actually looks for a second like he might cry, which is quite unlike him.

Standing from the bed, Ben crosses to Hux and wraps an arm around his waist, drawing him in until his back is nestled against Ben’s chest. “She’ll be okay,” Ben promises. Hux had arranged for one of his work colleagues to housesit, specifically so Millie didn’t have to leave her territory. He’d tried to rationalize taking her with them, but such conversations with his mother always ended with Millie being locked in a room during the festivities or escaping through the front door never to be seen again.

“I know,” Hux sighs, and lets the cat pounce to the floor. She bounds out of the room and Hux turns slowly in Ben’s embrace, chin tilted just slightly to meet his eyes. “Are we going to be okay?”

Ben’s brow creases with tender concern, and he touches his forehead to Hux’s. “Why wouldn’t we be okay?”

Hux shrugs, his fingers lying against Ben’s chest. “It’s all been so fast. Only eleven months ago we were just roommates. Now we own a house together, and a car, and we’re about to get married…”

Months ago, before they’d both laid their apprehensions about their relationship on the table, Hux’s question might have driven a spike of anxiety into Ben’s heart, but he knows now that Hux’s need for reassurance runs as deep as his self-doubt; it lingers from Hux’s childhood, and like all wounds, Ben knows only time will heal it. They are much alike, him and Hux.

“We will be better than okay,” Ben promises him, kissing his nose softly. “When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, why wait?”

Hux looks dubious for a moment, searching Ben’s eyes as though he can glean his sincerity. They’d both spent a good deal of time in the early months of their fledgling romance doubting themselves and doubting each other, sure that the hammer would drop at any moment and smash their idealistic fantasy. But it hadn’t. They’d waded through those feelings, through the darkness in Ben’s past, and now they are here, at the threshold of their new life.

Hux’s shoulders slump, some of the anxiety draining away, and he wraps his arms around Ben’s neck, holding him close. “I love you,” he murmurs.

Ben smiles, kissing Hux’s damp hair. “I love you, too. Now go get ready.”

 

* * *

 

 

Ben shoves their second carry on bag into the overhead compartment of United Air flight 431, and smiles to himself at the number of bags Hux has managed to pack; in his defense, they’d packed for two trips, and Hux was insistent that Ben take extras of everything, and that it was all neatly organized in each suitcase according to item type. Hux had even ordered new, matching luggage, big enough to fit both their things in.

Nerves stir in his stomach as he shuts the overhead bin; that fluttery feeling like he’s walking a tightrope over a steep drop has been with him for days, ever since they’d booked their flights to Georgia, almost one year to the date from the trip that had started this all. It’s not a _bad_ feeling, not what he thinks people called “cold feet,” but it’s nevertheless nagging in its inexplicable nature. It’s more prevalent now, on the plane, where any moment they will be hurtling even faster toward their future.

He drops down into the seat beside Hux, who is tapping away on his cell phone while he still can, and Ben leans against him, peering at the screen. Over the last few months, phone calls and text conversations had abounded between their two families: Hux had painstakingly guided his mother through the process of setting up Skype so she could (as Hux referred to it) plot with Leia, hundreds of photos had been exchanged on all fronts of flowers, chairs, wedding arches, dresses and suits, cakes. Menus had been discussed, music planned, guests agreed upon. Ben is still overwhelmed by it all, unsure how any of it has actually come together halfway across the country. Hux, however, is in his element.

“Now what?” Ben asks, watching text stream by on Hux’s phone.

“Mitaka is apparently planning a bachelor party.” Hux’s eyebrows rise toward his hairline, one corner of his mouth turning down dubiously.

Ben snorts. “In Tully, Georgia? Where is it going to be, the local sports bar?”

Hux grins. “No, Atlanta, and I’m not sure which worries me more.”

Overhead, the captain’s voice beseeches them to please give their attention to the flight attendants as they demonstrate the features of their aircraft. Ben glances up briefly, then back to Hux’s text conversation.

_(Hux) Well there have to be strippers. Or it doesn’t count._

“Oh my god,” Ben mumbles, words half smothered in laughter as three dots bounce on the phone screen below Hux’s message, pause for a span of seconds, then start up again. For as long as they indicate a message is being typed, Mitaka’s text is woefully short.

_(Mitaka) ok…._

“Do we really need to have a bachelor party?” Ben asks, squinting at the phone.

Hux turns an appalled expression on him, his red hair limned in the sunlight that filters through the window behind him. “What kind of question is that? You only get married once. This is your last chance to see naked men besides me.”

Ben feels himself flush, tries not to glance at the person in the seat in front of them who half turns to peer between the seat cushions. “Could you have said that a little louder, maybe?” he prods Hux, who grins rather than appearing chagrined.

“Oh you know how loud I can be, honey.” Before Ben can protest, Hux leans in and kisses him.

Ben smiles against his lips, and reaches down to find Hux’s hand and twine their fingers together. Then Hux abruptly pulls back from the kiss, eyes going wide with concern.

“What if Luke didn’t remember to register in Georgia?” he asks. “We’ll have to…”

“He didn’t have to, Hux,” Ben reassures him with a chuckle. “He checked.”

Hux’s brows draw down, unconvinced, and he turns back to his phone. Ben sees him swipe his text application away and open a web browser, clearly intending to double check this information rather than trust Ben’s uncle, who is as yet a stranger to him.

Ben is distracted from this misgiving by Hux’s shoulders rising with a sigh of relief. Hux brandishes the phone at him, showing Ben what he already knows: Georgia is listed in green type as one of the multitude of states that do not require a minister to register before performing a wedding ceremony.

“Told you,” Ben says, smirking.

“Well I don’t know your uncle. Your mother said he spent years in a commune and smokes weed. He could have forgotten.” Hux’s eyes snap to Ben, stern. “He isn't going to do some weird, hippie bonding ceremony and sacrifice to Mother Earth is he?”

Ben’s shoulders quiver with laughter, and he leans his head back against the seat, eyes closing with mirth. “He’s a humanities professor, babe. He’s more likely to quote Shakespeare.”

Beside him, he hears Hux say, theatrically, “Oh god.”

Ben looks at him and squeezes his hand. “You worry too much.”

“I don’t, either. I worry precisely the adequate amount.” Hux frowns at him.

“How many pages of instructions did you leave for the housesitter?” Ben bites his lip against an amused smile, and Hux looks away, tilting his chin up.

“Millicent is very particular, and I don’t want my plants to die.”  

“Maybe we should skip the honeymoon,” Ben suggests, feigning a thoughtful tone. It brings Hux’s gaze around sharply again. “I mean, Millicent is very particular, and you don’t want your plants to die.”

“You’re getting on my bad side right now, Ben Solo,” Hux murmurs, leaning close and giving him a soft, apologetic kiss, his eyes half-lidded. Below them, the engine starts to spool, making Hux flinch in alarm, and in moments the plane is rolling down the tarmac.

A year ago, they’d taken this same plane trip, and Ben had been a nervous wreck; it had been his first time in the air since coming home from Afghanistan and the helicopter crash that had robbed him of his military career. On their way to Georgia the first time, Hux had held his hand, lending him strength even though Hux had been going home to bury his father. Now Hux is the one clinging to Ben’s hand, so tightly Ben can feel Hux’s racing pulse. It’s not the plane that is making Hux anxious, Ben thinks; it’s the forward motion. Toward forever.

It lasts only as long as it takes the plane to taxi down the runway, to rocket toward the end and launch into the sky, gaining altitude and leaving Chicago behind. Ben leans back in his seat, for the first time in years finding himself able to look out the window and watch the city fall away without a crushing fear of falling; he might never have gotten to this place without Hux. If Hux hadn’t appeared in Ben’s bedroom door a year ago and admitted he’d lied to his family about being engaged, if Ben hadn’t seen that raw, naked need for support in Hux’s eyes, he might not be here now. Might never have gotten on another plane, might never have admitted how he felt about his roommate or had a chance at love like they have. It’s funny, Ben thinks, that it had taken a lie to find the truth.

Gradually, he feels Hux’s fingers relax around his, and Hux turns away from the window, meeting Ben’s eyes. They stare at one another, each waiting for the other to betray a feeling, to indicate how the other should react; it’s a look that is familiar to Ben, as it had passed between them often in the early days, when they’d been so unsure of each other.

Yet Ben _is_ sure now; he knows what he wants, and it’s reflected in his smile as he looks at the man who will be his husband in five days. Hux smiles back at almost the same moment, as though they’d both realized at the same instant that they are, in fact, heading in the right direction.

 


	2. Four Horsemen On The Lawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** couple of smallish chapter warnings: Rx med use w/ alcohol (don't try this at home, friends), and a slur that I hate but tbh I understand why Hux had to go there.

A humid breeze rank with the odor of fuel fumes, hot rubber, and stagnant water swirls down beneath the walkway canopy, tossing a crumpled boarding ticket into the gutter and sending a discarded can clattering across the concrete. Hux’s nose twitches as he exhales, trying to blow the redolent city air out of his nostrils; he’d gotten far too used to spending the bulk of his time enjoying the pleasing bouquet of his charmed country life. Even his commute into the city each day was bracketed by Febreze vent clips in Midnight Storm scent (which Ben says clearly fits the mood of the car).

Hux’s fingers curl into the crook of Ben’s arm, and he presses himself flush to Ben’s side to take full advantage of the bubble that seems to surround Ben; harried passengers, single-mindedly focused on absconding from the baggage terminal with the utmost haste, flow around Ben rather than jostle him or obstruct his view of the street. 

It’s hard not to allow amusement to tinge his fond smile as Hux glances at Ben’s impassive face with its stone expression; while Hux finds the dark aviator glasses fairly devastating, he has to admit that it adds a touch of the dangerous unknown.

With his free hand, Hux frees his cell phone from the pocket of his slacks to check for new messages, and finds one from his brother. 

“Donnie says they’re about ten minutes away. Bad traffic,” Hux tells Ben. 

Ben doesn’t acknowledge him at first, and Hux wonders if he’s heard; looking up, Hux catches the tell-tale hints that Ben is on high alert. This kind of silent, exacting observation is his habit in public, absorbing details that invariably escape Hux’s attention. It wouldn’t surprise Hux, honestly, if hours later Ben could tell him how many yellow cabs passed them, how many people were talking on their cell phones and the details of those conversations close enough to hear, the license plate numbers on the cars that streamed by.

Hux gives Ben’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Earth to Ben Solo. Come in please.” 

Ben smirks, though the expression takes a moment to form. Then he turns his head and gives Hux a soft kiss on the side of his head.

“Nine minutes,” Ben revises. 

Hux smiles and nuzzles Ben’s shoulder. “Is any of this real? Are we really about to do this?” He’s not sure if he’s asking Ben, or asking himself, but every time he contemplates the way this life-altering moment is rushing toward them, his stomach flutters with nerves and he feels heady with disbelief. 

Hux peers up at Ben only to receive another kiss right between his eyebrows. It’s the kiss Ben gives him when he’s overreacting about something, and Hux closes his eyes at the warm brush of Ben’s lips and takes a deep breath. He feels the tips of Ben’s fingers ruffling the hair at the base of his skull softly. 

“You’ve said yes twice now,” Ben murmurs, pressing his cheek to Hux’s forehead. “There’s no getting out of it now.” 

Hux attempts to give him a sideways glance. “Twice? I only recall the once.” 

“Mmm. Once when I got down on one knee in Union Square, and the other on a couch in our living room.” 

Hux’s cheeks warm; he should be long past any semblance of embarrassment at being reminded of the elaborate fantasy he’d concocted for his family in which Ben had delivered a dramatic proposal in front of scores of onlookers, but any reference to the  fact that he’d all but conned Ben into this arrangement never fails to make him blush. “I prefer the time on the couch,” he mumbles, wrapping his arm around Ben’s waist. 

Ben nuzzles his hair, tickling. “You know I was planning to re-enact that entire fantasy of yours. The train station. The speech about undying love, and all that.” 

“All that?” Hux smiles. “You realize that right after that proposal you whisked me away to Paris for a month and we barely g… oh for the love of God.” 

There’s an inquiring noise from Ben, and Hux nudges him with his shoulder. “Look,” he groans, pointing. 

A red Honda drifts along the curb toward them, hemmed in by cars in front and behind, but the sign in the right corner of the windshield is plainly visible. It reads, in large, typed block-letters,  _ Mr. and Mrs. Solo.  _

Ben starts laughing, and Hux glares severely at Donnie, whose head appears above the sign with a shit-eating grin. 

Hux jabs Ben with his elbow. “Laugh while you can. This is your future brother-in-law.” 

The Honda comes to a stop several car lengths away, and doesn’t move again. The impatient  _ blaat _ of horns is punctuated by shouts of yellow-vested traffic guards, bellowing at drivers to move along.

Ben reaches down and grabs one of their bags, slinging the strap over his shoulder, then tugs at the handles of the two largest ones.

“Come on,” he calls back to Hux as he moves toward the stalled vehicle, and Hux hurries after him, dragging yet more bags behind him. 

“Where the hell are you two going?” Donnie asks as he pushes his door open and climbs out onto the sidewalk. “On a world tour?” 

The trunk pops open and Donnie takes one of their bags off Hux’s hands, wrestling it into the back of the car. 

“Europe,” Hux tells him, wrinkling his nose as their car is blocked in by an unnecessarily large truck. “Far away from this cesspool.”

Ben grins at Donnie, and Hux can’t help a flash of warmth in his chest to think that in just a few short days, they really  _ will _ be related, brothers bound by law. 

“Basically only one of these bags is mine,” Ben lies, slamming the trunk and winking at Hux. 

“You’ll be glad when you realize you didn’t forget anything,” Hux grouses, folding himself into the back of the Honda and scooting over to make room for Ben. 

“You mean when I realize I have two of everything?” Ben pulls his door closed and smiles at Hux. He’s more buoyant than Hux had expected him to be, like he falls naturally into the role of a brother-in-law, excited to see his family. 

Any retort Hux might have managed is waylaid by Holly , who calls back by way of a greeting, “Hang on, kids!” Then she angles the Honda and rockets out through a gap in the traffic. 

Hux clings to the door with one hand while he tries to fasten his seatbelt with the other. “Where the hell did you learn to drive? Talladega? You’re as bad as Ben.” 

“I’m efficient,” Holly counters, smiling at Hux in the rearview mirror. 

Donnie twists in his seat, and the sign that had been wedged against the windshield flies into Hux’s lap. “I made that just for you. I even laminated it.” 

Hux picks it up, turning it over in his hands and frowning. “Why am I Mrs. Solo? Why can’t Ben be Mrs. Hux?” 

“Because you’re the pretty one!” Donnie says, still grinning at them from the space between the front seats.

Hux glares. “I am not  _ pretty. _ ” 

Ben, who had been watching traffic beyond the window, looks at him, reaching out to thread their fingers together. “You are too. And you look great in lingerie.” 

Hux feels his cheeks turn red, and sees Donnie disappear around the edge of his seat, facing forward again. 

“Now that I did not need to know,” Hux’s brother calls back.

 

The conversation steers to safer waters after that, Holly and Donnie asking questions about their house, inquiring after Millicent, and soliciting details about their honeymoon. That, at least, is a subject Hux is excited to talk about. Discussing wedding plans only manages to fill Hux’s head with a catalogue of all the things that could possibly go wrong, from rain to bigoted relatives who can’t keep their true colors under wraps. 

The largest of the suitcases stay in the car, as they’d only be putting them back in, unopened if all went as planned, when they leave Atlanta for Tully in two days time. It does, Hux thinks as he deposits their overnight bag on the bed, feel a little like a world tour. Chicago in the morning, Atlanta tonight, then Tully, Atlanta again, and then off to Europe for two weeks. 

Sharp pain pulses in his temple, predecessor to a migraine, and Hux pinches the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath. There is, he fears, a very real danger that he will be unconscious from exhaustion during his honeymoon if he doesn’t find some way to relax. 

Glancing up with that thought, he finds Ben with their toiletries bag open, holding one hand out toward Hux, something pinched between two fingers. Brow furrowed, Hux holds his palm out, and something tiny and blue drops into it. Half a pill. 

“Take that,” Ben says, zipping the bag again and moving toward the door. 

Hux doesn’t argue, though he doesn’t get much farther than the realization that he doesn’t have anything to drink before he sinks down on the edge of the bed. He toes his shoes off, flexing his feet, and has to cover his mouth in a yawn that makes his eyes water. 

“Ben said to give you this,” Donnie says from the doorway, and Hux blinks at him. His brother has a small bottle of artisan water, and he crosses the few steps to Hux and holds it out. 

“Mmm,” Hux mumbles, pressing the cool plastic to his forehead. A droplet of condensation trickles down the bridge of his nose. “Apparently he and I have reached the mind-reading phase of our relationship.” 

“You mean the part where he realizes you’re high-strung?” Donnie asks with a smile in his voice.

Hux snorts, twisting the bottle cap off and downing the half a Xanax that Ben had given him.  He glances at Donnie with one eye. “I’m absolutely low maintenance.” 

Instead of arguing, Donnie just smiles, and the expression is somewhere between indulgent and fond. It throws Hux off, and he covers it by downing half the bottle of water. 

His brother settles on the bed beside him, stretching his legs out and bouncing twice on the mattress, like he’s testing the spring. “Never slept in here, but I bought a new foam topper for it. And we got some new sheets.” 

Hux prods the mattress with one palm, another yawn escaping before he can bring his hand up to cover it. “I’m fairly sure I could sleep on a slab of concrete tonight if I had to.” 

Donnie seems to be concentrating on his socks, rubbing his heels against the thick, beige carpet. “There’s extra pillows in the closet over there.” He nods toward the door to the right of the dresser. “And blankets. Holly has to have the house at sixty degrees year round.” He says this last bit with a long-suffering tone, the sort of inflection Hux has noticed beginning to crop up with he and Ben. 

“I’m sure we’ll be good,” Hux assures his brother. “Low maintenance, and all that.” 

They sit in awkward silence for a moment, neither of them quite used to being brothers again after so long estranged. Somewhere in another room of the house, Hux hears a dog bark. 

“I wish Dad could be there on Saturday,” Donnie finally says quietly. “He would have been happy for you.” 

Hux toys with the cap of the water bottle, screwing it off and then back on, and his nose tingles with emotion that has yet to be buried. “If you’re happy for me, that’ll be enough.” It sounds too sentimental in his own ears, but it also feels true. 

Donnie nudges him playfully with a shoulder. “You say that now, but you haven’t heard my best man speech.” 

Hux is grateful at this moment for the benzodiazepine in his system, which is beginning to block some of his anxiety and stave off his tension headache. For the last six weeks, at least, any mention of wedding logistics has been enough to make him grind his teeth.

“Well, when Ben hears my vows, he may decide not to marry me,” Hux admits with a sigh.

“That bad?” 

Hux shrugs one shoulder, takes another drink of water, letting the last drop fall onto his tongue. “Just, non-existent. Unless you count a waste-paper bin full of less than stellar efforts.” 

Donnie chuckles. “Not that I’m wise in my youth, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that will matter to you later. I think if Holly had given a speech about World War II fighter pilots at the altar I would have thought it was the most meaningful set of vows ever delivered.” 

Hux chews on the inside of his lip, smiling as he pictures that. “I wish I’d been there like that for you,” he admits sadly, recalling the way that he’d ordered something shipped overnight from Holly and Donnie’s registry because he’d forgotten to buy a gift, the way Donnie had asked his friend from college to be his best man because he hadn’t spoken to his brother in two years, and couldn’t be sure if Hux would even show up. He had, in the end, but even six years later Hux feels as though he missed something he’ll never get back, and it’s only magnified by his own impending moment in the spotlight.

Donnie doesn’t answer at first, and Hux looks over with trepidation, fearful of seeing resentment that is, at best, deserved. Donnie’s face is just blank, however, and Hux jumps when his brother slaps a hand onto Hux’s knee. 

“We’ll send your future nieces and nephews up to you every summer to make up for it. Babysitting duty for life.” He flashes Hux a devious smile, throwing it into doubt whether that’s only a jest.

“I’ll send them back corrupted,” Hux promises.

“I’d expect nothing less,” Donnie says, giving Hux’s knee a squeeze and standing up. “Let’s go get in the pool while we wait on dinner.” Before Hux can argue with that concept, not that he wants to, Donnie is disappearing out the door, having reached his limit, it seems, of brotherly bonding time.

Hux stands, and the change in altitude makes his head feel fuzzy— the pain, at least, is gone. He unzips a bag and starts picking through it to find his their swim trunks, careful not to unfold anything, before he realizes he’s looking in the wrong bag. He opens their hotel bag instead, the one they’ll use on their wedding night, and despite any medication, his chest tightens again.  _ How is that night less than a week away?  _ Everything between now and then— this night at his brother’s house, the bachelor party Mitaka’s planned, seeing his mother and Ben’s family again— it’s like they are waiting just beyond the threshold to cross into their new life. Hux can see it from here, and it feels huge and eternal. 

Donnie calls his name from beyond the bedroom, snapping Hux out of his wide-eyed reflection, and he sucks in a breath, light-headed from holding it. Carding through several more articles of clothing, including a painstakingly assembled collection of brand new lingerie, he finds their swimsuits and pulls them out, tossing them on the bed. He zips the bag closed, just in case. 

Hux pads down the hall to the den, stifling a yawn with the back of one hand. Emerging into the room, he starts to speak to Ben before he sees him, to tell him he’s found his swim trunks, but the announcement dissolves into a burst of laughter. 

Ben is seated on the couch near the patio door, and in his lap are Donnie and Holly’s two miniature dachshunds, one almost atop the other. Small dogs to begin with, they look even more diminutive next to Ben. 

“I see you’ve made some friends,” Hux remarks, unable to help a smile. 

Ben returns the smile, scratching beneath the chin of the brindle long-hair. “We have to get one,” he tells Hux.

“Millicent would not approve.” Hux crosses to the couch and settles down beside Ben. Both dogs look at him warily, and the black and tan one bares its teeth and wrinkles its nose in a silent snarl. “Neither, apparently, do they,” he adds, frowning and leaning away. “Besides, I had you pegged for something more like a German Sheppard.” 

Ben shrugs one shoulder and leans over to kiss Hux’s cheek. “You feeling better?” 

“Mmm,” Hux responds, turning his face to catch Ben’s lips. He starts to make a comment about being rather exquisitely worn out by their morning and afternoon trysts, but the sliding glass door that leads to the deck opens and Donnie steps inside, wiping his hands on his jeans. 

“Grill’s going. Pool is ready.” He claps his hands, scattering the dogs off Ben’s lap. “Last chance to relax until your honeymoon!”   
  


 

How true that is won’t sink in for Hux for another twenty-four hours. Floating in the pool with a peach daiquiri half an hour later, he manages to simply exist in the moment— the water, with its blue LEDs and tiki torches that waver lazily in the citronella-scented air, is almost magical. Although perhaps that’s the alcohol and the Xanax. 

Either way, he settles into bed beside his fiance just after ten, wrapped snugly in his arms, and drifts off into the first peaceful, dreamless sleep he’s had in weeks. 

The next day, things start to go wrong.

  
  


Hux is startled out of sleep by a boom of thunder that rattles the windows; tiny wavelets radiate through the glass of water on the nightstand, and Ben’s fingers tighten around Hux’s. That, and a sharp intake of air are Ben’s only reactions, which is a far cry better than it’s been in the past.

Hux rolls over, draping his arm around Ben’s waist and snuggling into him. With his cheek against Ben’s chest, he can feel the rapid thrum of his heart. “Good morning, husband,” Hux murmurs, his voice almost drowned out by the pounding of rain on the roof. 

Ben massages the back of Hux’s head gently with his fingernails. “Practicing?” 

“Mmmhmm. How does it sound?” Hux turns his face up, kissing Ben’s chin. 

Dipping his head, Ben gives Hux a lazy kiss with sleep-warmed lips. “Very good, Mrs. Solo.” 

Hux attempts a growl, but only manages a tired whine. “How about you be Mr. Hux?”

“Mm. That won’t work unless you start going by Armitage. Besides, I already have enough last names.”

“You calling me Armie is not going to happen.” Hux yawns, and it’s broken off in a squawk when Ben rolls him over onto his back and settles his heavy weight on top of him, nipping the underside of his jaw. 

“It’s not fair that everyone in your family gets to call you Armie but me,” Ben complains, mouthing rather sloppy kisses along Hux’s neck. 

Hux swats Ben’s shoulder. “Stop,” he laughs, squirming beneath him. “We’re not doing this in my brother’s house.” 

Ben props himself on his elbows and stares down at Hux incredulously. “But, handjobs in the shower at your mom’s house are okay?” 

Hux blushes at that, feeling his morning erection flag at the mention of his mother, but he wraps a leg around Ben’s, intent on reawakening it since his hypocrisy has already been exposed. 

Then Hux’s phone rings, and like the hand of providence reaching out to keep him in line, it’s his mother calling. Ben doesn’t offer to remove himself from atop Hux, choosing instead to pepper kisses across Hux’s collarbones as Hux swipes his phone on. 

“Morning, Ma,” he says, voice a bit thick as the air is pressed from his lungs by Ben’s weight.

“Armie! The photographer cancelled this morning!” his mother blurts by way of a greeting, her voice shrill with panic. “I tried calling that gal that does the confirmation portraits over at St. Mary’s, but she’s going to be out of town on Saturday, and…” 

“Ma, hang on,” Hux breathes, pushing at Ben’s tousled head where he is now tracing feather soft lips across Hux’s sternum. “What do you mean the photographer cancelled?” 

Hux senses Ben’s eyes on him immediately, even as Hux is trying to roll onto his side. Ben lets him go, falling back onto his own pillow. 

Aislain takes a deep breath, and Hux can almost feel her pacing. “He said he’s got a family emergency and he doesn’t have a choice. He said…” 

“We already  _ paid _ the photographer,” Hux snarls, sitting up cross-legged and winding his free hand into the sheet across his lap. 

“I know, honey. He gave me some names of a few people for us to call, but it’s so last minute, and it’s a summer solstice wedding, and I…”

“Yes, Ma, it’s a complete disaster,” Hux groans, cutting her off perhaps a bit too harshly. Ben strokes his back gently, which is silent-speak for  _ calm down _ . Hux sucks in a shaky breath, a tension headache forming between his brows. “We’ll figure it out,” he tells his mother with more confidence than he feels. “There has to be someone that’s free.” 

“I’ll make some phone calls too, sweetheart,” Aislain says. “I’ll call you back this afternoon.” 

Hux hangs up the phone after saying a short goodbye, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers and squeezing his eyes closed. 

“I can’t fucking believe this,” he mutters to Ben. “It took us months to settle on that photographer.” It had, honestly, taken  _ Hux  _ months to settle, as Ben would probably have been happy with a scrapbook full of polaroids.

True to form, Ben rubs his back again, saying without much concern in his voice, “It’ll be okay, baby. We’ll find someone.”  

Hux sucks in a breath, turns a baleful stare on him. “If we’re  _ lucky! _ We booked this agency four months ago.” Hux throws the blankets off and slides out of bed; Ben catches his hand with a soft whine and tries to draw him back, but Hux pulls away, intent on sharing this news with his brother in the event that he and Holly might know a photographer. 

Hux pulls on a t-shirt and pajama pants, fingers shaking with anger. He can’t even summon the compassion to imagine a family emergency scenario about which he can give shit, given the circumstances. He glances at Ben as he walks toward the door, finding him reclined in the pillows with his knees drawn up, looking at his phone; the fact that he seems so nonplussed pisses Hux off, and he throws the door open, stalking down the hall.

He can smell bacon cooking, overlaying the aroma of fresh coffee, and his stomach growls despite the fact that he has no appetite. He turns the corner toward the kitchen, and is suddenly assaulted by high-pitched barking as two four-legged devils come tearing out of the kitchen, nails scrabbling across the tile. 

_“Fucking Christ!”_ Hux shouts, dancing away from the feinted attacks on his ankles coming from every direction at once. 

Holly ducks around the counter, brandishing a spatula. “Yoda!” she shouts, slapping her thigh. “Frodo! Knock it off!” 

Hux throws himself in a chair at the kitchen table, pulling his feet up out of reach. One of the dogs stands on its hind legs, paws on the chair and growling, only to be scooped off the floor by Ben and tucked like a fat sausage under one arm. Whichever one it is - Frodo, Yoda - wriggles, whipcord tail thumping against Ben’s back as he settles in the chair across from Hux. Holly distracts the other beast with half a piece of bacon, and hands Ben the other half for him to feed to his charge. 

“We’re  _ not _ getting one of those,” Hux informs Ben archly, who only raises both eyebrows in a look Hux knows means  _ we’ll see _ . 

The front door opens then, and Donnie emerges from the garage, t-shirt soaked and a plastic bag in one hand. He takes a look at Hux with his feet in the chair, Ben with the dog held safely out of the way, and smirks. “How’d you sleep?” his brother asks, peeling a bottle of orange juice out of the sack. 

“Fine, until this morning,” Hux grouses, pouncing on his opportunity to share their dilemma.   
  


 

There is an attempt at problem solving over breakfast, which takes place around a laptop with photographer websites open. Most of them are familiar to Hux, who’d spent weeks browsing the work of these various agencies, and the bulk of them are as objectionable now as they had been then.

Donnie stands up from the table eventually, bored with the process after Hux has called at least a dozen agencies to find they have no availability. Donnie stretches, then starts gathering plates. “You can’t really afford to be picky, bro,” he says, which is followed immediately by a low whistle from Ben. 

“Taking your life into your own hands,” Ben mutters, pushing himself back from the table as well, wandering into the kitchen to pour more coffee. 

Hux glares at Donnie’s back as he follows, carrying a handful of plates. He opens his mouth to deliver a scathing reply, but Holly snaps her fingers in front of his face.

“Focus. What about this one?” She turns the laptop toward Hux, who frowns at the page at first, chewing the inside of his cheek as he scrolls up with one finger on the touchpad. The photographs are classy, elegant compositions; even better, there’s an announcement in white calligraphy across the top of the page that says  _ “Last minute bookings may be available!”  _

“Fuck, yes,” Hux sighs, dialing the number. Someone answers on the third ring, and Hux’s heart is in his throat as he explains their situation. The woman on the phone is sympathetic, coos her condolences with an aristocratic Southern lilt, and then to Hux’s profound relief, she informs him that they can, indeed, fit them on Saturday (for a nominal fee). 

Hux is quick to agree, intent on just putting it on his credit card and dealing with the fallout later of arguing with Ben about using his trust fund to pay for their wedding. Holly is leaning on one elbow watching him as Donnie bustles about in the kitchen, water running and dishes clinking. Ben lounges against the counter, sipping his coffee as he listens in. 

The woman on the other line asks questions about the details of their ceremony, and the tension in Hux’s chest starts to unwind as he shares the logistics: the address of the country club in Tully, the number of people they’re expecting in the party, the features of their venue. 

“That sounds fantastic, Mr. Hux,” the woman croons as he describes the various landscape features of their outdoor wedding,  and Hux can hear her typing in the background. “I think we can work with all of this, absolutely.” 

Hux slumps back in his chair, giving Ben and Holly a relieved thumbs up. 

“So if I could just get your information, Mr. Hux,” the woman on the phone says. “You said your first name was Armitage? How do you spell that?” 

“A-R-M-I-T-A-G-E,” Hux spells it out. 

The keyboard clacks in the background again. “Got it. And the bride?” 

Hux pauses, having not heard that suggestion once since he’d accepted Ben’s proposal. “Um… the  _ groom _ is Ben. Ben Solo.” 

There’s a long pause on the other end. “I thought you said that you were the groom, Mr. Hux.” 

Hux’s brow furrows. “I am,” he says slowly, picking at the cuticle his thumb with one nail. “We’re both men.” 

Another pause. “Ohhh. Well Mr. Hux, let me just see here.” There is silence, no keyboard, but it sounds like some pages shuffle. Then the woman clears her throat. “You know, silly me, I just saw an invoice here I didn’t see before. It looks like Saturday is booked after all! I’m so sorry, Mr. Hux.”

“Wait,” Hux says, confused for just a moment before it sinks in. “Are you serious?” Hux’s stomach knots, a flame of anger in his chest that he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager. 

“So sorry, Mr. Hux. Best of luck!” With that, the phone clicks off. 

Hux sits there, stunned, pulse pounding in his temples, fingers quivering. Holly is leaning back in her chair, staring at the table, and out of the corner of his eye Hux sees Donnie watching him him, and Ben peeling himself off the counter to cross to the dining room. 

Hux’s phone rings again, and he jumps, thinking for one brief second it might be that bigoted cunt calling back to apologize and beg his forgiveness, but it’s Phasma. 

He accepts the call, puts it to his ear. “Hello?” The word sounds dark in his ears.

“Whoa, buddy,” Phasma says. “You all right?” 

“No,” Hux growls, feeling Ben’s fingers on his shoulders, rubbing at the tension there. “I’ll tell you about it when you get here this afternoon.” Phasma and Mitaka are supposed to fly in at three, immediate predecessor to Mitaka’s questionable bachelor party plans. 

“Yeahhhh,” Phasma sighs. “About that. O’Hare is re-routing flights because of some issue with an air traffic control tower. We’re not sure what time we’ll get in. Maybe not until tomorrow.” 

Hux grinds his teeth, tears of frustration forming in his eyes. “You’re serious.” It’s not a question, because of course she’s serious. Why wouldn’t she be? Everything else is falling apart, so why not this too? 

“Listen, just go ahead to your mom’s house. We’ll meet you there and we’ll throw the best bachelor party ever. There’s a bowling alley there, right?” She laughs half-heartedly, knowing this won’t appease Hux. 

“Whatever,” Hux sighs. “Just fuck it. See you tomorrow.” 

Phasma starts to say something else, but Hux hangs up on her, dropping his phone on the table. Before anyone can say anything else to him, he shoves his chair back from the table and retreats to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. 

 

 

 

They’d waited in Atlanta for the better part of the afternoon, lingering with the hope that perhaps something would change and Phasma and Mitaka would make it in on time, but a text comes at six o’clock saying their flight has been rescheduled for the next morning.

After the debacle with the last photography agency, Hux hadn’t the heart to call any others, though as he spent the day curled around himself in the bed, he’d heard indistinct voices fading in and out as, presumably, Ben and his family tried to tackle the problem. No one mentions anything to Hux, however, which leads him to believe that they’d had no luck. 

He’s in a state of despair by the time Ben rouses him to gather their bags and load them into the car again. The drive to Tully is only forty-five minutes, and Hux spends it slumped against the door, staring out at the dusk-draped countryside. Ben lets him sit in silence during the ride, allowing him to brood and knowing that it’s just a stage that Hux goes through when faced with what feels like an insurmountable emotional challenge. 

Hux is so fully withdrawn from the situation that he’s almost asleep when the car pulls down the driveway of his childhood home. Ben brings him back to the present with a hand on his thigh, rubbing friction through his slacks. Hux uncurls, sitting up to peer through the front seats at the house. 

Holly and Donnie had been mostly silent during the drive, as though no one had been willing to stir the tempest in the backseat. Now, Donnie looks back at him. 

“Chin up, big brother,” he says, and there’s empathy in his tone, like one would expect from a loved one. “It’ll work out. It’s meant to be, right?” 

Hux frowns, compelled to argue, but Donnie’s argument is clever. “Yeah,” he mutters, allowing Ben to pull him close for a hug for the first time since hanging up that call with the photographer. Donnie gives him an encouraging smile, and Hux hides his face in Ben’s neck; if he’s sure about anything, it’s that he’s meant to marry this man, even if there’s not a single photograph of the day.

Donnie relieves them of the burden of carrying their overnight bags, leaving Hux to walk to the house with his fingers twined through Ben’s. They’d been back here since his father’s funeral, having spent Christmas with his mother, but the muggy June weather reminds Hux much more of the summer this had all started. When things had been fake, and yet anything but.

Aislain greets them at the door, just as she had that day nearly a year ago, her hair in the same, neat bun at the nape of her neck, an oven mitt tucked under one arm. Hux watches Donnie lean down to give her a kiss on the cheek, whisper something into her ear. Her eyebrows pull together, and she nods, then turns a bright smile on Hux.

“Hi, honey,” she says, wrapping one arm around him and pulling Ben in close with the other. 

Ben has to stoop to receive her kiss on his cheek. “Hi, Ma,” he says, and Hux thaws a little at that. Things become a bit more real. 

“I’ve got dinner ready,” Aislain says cautiously, cupping Hux’s cheek in her palm. “Think you can eat?” 

Hux just nods, because refusing his mother’s cooking is cruel and unusual, and he allows himself to be shuffled into the house. All the lights are on, and there’s music coming from the record player in the den, and it does, he must admit, smell rather heavenly. 

“So I’ve got some good news,” Aislain says cheerfully, taking down a bottle of Jack Daniels from the shelf and rubbing the dust off the glass with her apron. She sets it on the counter and then sets tumblers out alongside. 

“That’ll be a change,” Hux says morosely, screwing the lid off the bottle and sharing it evenly in the five glasses. Then he pours another finger in his, and takes a sip. 

Aislain is watching him with both eyebrows raised, and is distracted momentarily by Donnie and Holly coming back from carrying bags upstairs. She turns briefly to the freezer, opening it and spilling a blast of cold air into the kitchen. She takes out an ice tray and cracks it, plucking out a cube which she holds out to Hux. Hux tilts his glass toward his mother, and she drops it in.

“You remember that lady you used to help out after school? The one that lived out on Empire Avenue?” 

Hux nearly chokes on his drink, swallows roughly as it burns the back of his throat. “Rae Sloane?” he croaks. 

“Yes, yes. That was her name.” Aislain drops more ice cubes into the remaining tumblers of whiskey, the ice tinkling against the glass as they bob in the amber liquid. “Well turns out, she did get your invitation. This card came this morning.” His mother takes a small, white envelope off the refrigerator from beneath a magnet shaped like Florida, and hands it to Hux. 

“I thought she died,” Donnie says, picking up his drink.

Hux looks away from peeling the card open with one thumbnail. “Hold your tongue,” he tells his brother, though honestly, Hux too had been unsure of Rae’s whereabouts the last few years. 

“Who is this?” Ben asks, leaning close to Hux to peer down at the card; it’s a glossy red on the outside, devoid of decoration, which had always been Rae Sloane’s style. 

“I used to go over to cut her grass in the summer,” Hux murmurs, mesmerized by the card, with all thoughts of photographers and delayed friends pushed to the back of his mind. “Then she started having me do odd jobs. Fixing her porch, her fans, her air conditioner. Something was always breaking.” Hux glances up at Ben. “I’m half convinced she did it on purpose to give me something to do.” He looks back down at the card, opens it. Inside, it reads only  _ “See you soon,”  _ and it makes Hux smile. That is what she’d always said from her front porch, waving at Hux as he took off at twilight down the dusty front path for his own home. 

“Is she coming to the wedding then?” Donnie asks, opening the refrigerator and rifling about for something to eat. 

Aislain looks over her shoulder, catching him at it, and swats him on the shoulder. “Get out of there. You’ll spoil your dinner.” She frowns as Donnie lets the door swing shut, but not without a jar of pickles. “Get a napkin, you’ll drip that all over the floor. And I assume so?” She looks at Hux again. “Is that what she means, do you think?” 

Hux shrugs, fitting the little card back into its envelope. “I don’t know. I hope so.” 

Aislain smiles. “It’ll be good for you to see her again,” she says.

Hux tries on a wary smile. “Yeah. It would be.” He doesn’t add  _ just as long as the four horsemen of the apocalypse don’t show up on the lawn tomorrow morning.  _

Aislain, nevertheless, seems to hear him thinking it. She shuffles forward, pinching Hux’s cheeks between two fingers in the way that only mothers can do, and she gives him kiss on the end of his nose. “Your day is going to be perfect,” she insists. 

When Hux opens his mouth to voice his very real doubts on the subject, Aislain puts a finger over his lips. “Mmm. Nope. Time to eat.” 

 

 

Hux’s steps are dragging by the time he takes the stairs to the second floor, after dinner dishes had been cleaned and nightcaps had all around. Ben had gone up before him while Hux had lingered on the porch sharing a cigar with Donnie, and there’s a rectangular shaped puddle of light outside Hux’s old bedroom. Their bedroom now, he supposes. 

Ben is facing away from him as Hux slips inside, closing the door softly behind him, but not so softly that Ben doesn’t hear him. He looks over his shoulder, giving Hux a smile every bit as wary as Hux’s had been in the kitchen earlier. Asking, it seems, if Hux’s temper has burned out for the night. 

It has, for the most part— or, rather, Hux is simply too exhausted to feed the flame. He crosses the room and wraps one arm around Ben’s waist, leaning into him. He can see the corner of their overnight bag from this angle, lying open on the bed. 

“You going to live?” Ben asks softly, the muscles of his back shifting as he sorts through the bag. 

“Maybe,” Hux sighs, nuzzling the space between Ben’s shoulder blades, the t-shirt soft beneath his cheek. “We should just run away and do this in Vegas with Elvis officiating.”

Ben’s answering laughter is short. “Right. And then you can deal with both Aislain’s wrath  _ and  _ my mother's.” 

Hux frowns at that, considering Ben’s tiny, spitfire of a mother. “I’ll pass,” he yawns, lifting a hand to thumb moisture out of one eye.

Ben turns in Hux’s embrace, smiling at him, and Hux waits for him to say something profound about patience and romance and everything being worth it in the end. But then Ben holds something up between them and his lips turn up in amusement. “These are nice.” 

Hux sees that one of his new, barely-there pairs of lace panties are hanging from the tip of Ben’s finger, and his nose flushes. “You’re not supposed to be looking at those yet,” he complains in hardly more than a whisper, snatching them away.

“Well there’s not much to look at, is there?” Ben points out, grinning and pulling Hux close to him when he tries to duck away to take control of their overnight bag again. 

“You’ll be pleased you don’t even have to take these off of me to claim your bride,” Hux hums, flicking them at the bed, and then immediately all humor drains from his chest and he pulls away from Ben. 

“I can’t believe that self-righteous cunt on the phone,” he snarls, feeling his head start to pound again. “How is there any place left on the planet where people can discriminate like that and get away with it? There should be a special circle in hell for someone like that.” 

Ben stands patiently, letting him vent, only reaching out to comb Hux’s hair behind his ear when he stops speaking. “I know, baby. It’s going to be okay, though.” 

Hux sighs. “I wanted it to be perfect.”

“It will be,” Ben assures him. Before Hux can argue, Ben puts his hand on Hux’s waist, stroking Hux’s belly with his thumb.”‘You remember the first time you undressed me?” he asks, voice low. “It was right here.” 

Hux’s cheeks warm, recalling that day with vivid clarity. He can suddenly almost feel the chill of the air conditioner on that wet dress shirt, the way his feet had been pruned from walking home in the rain. 

“Actually,” Hux says, hooking a finger in the waistband of Ben’s jeans and pulling as he took several steps backward, guiding Ben toward the center of the room before he stops. “It was more like, right here.” 

Ben smiles, fingers going to the buttons of Hux’s powder-blue shirt. “And you were more like this,” he offers, taking his time with each button until he can slip the shirt off Hux’s shoulders. It puddles on the floor, just as Hux’s clothes had been that day a year before. 

“Mmmm,” Hux says, feeling his cock start to stir. Ben tugs his own t-shirt over his head, and then Hux thumbs open the button of Ben’s jeans. He draws the zipper down with exaggerated slowness, and then he pushes jeans and boxers alike over Ben’s hips. 

Ben pulls Hux close with one hand on his hip, and Hux meets his kiss with just as much hunger as he had that day, just as much a thrill at feeling Ben’s hair between his fingers. Hux struggles out of his own pants and briefs, kicking them off, and only breaking their kiss when they’re both naked, both hard. 

“You’re still the most noble person I’ve ever met,” Hux whispers against Ben’s lips. 

Ben smiles, squeezing Hux’s hip, and then he lets go and walks into the bathroom. Hux watches him, appreciating his angles and curves, biting his lip in a grin at the fox tattoo on his shoulder. 

The water turns on, and Hux follows Ben into the bathroom, climbing into the shower and fitting himself into Ben’s arms. The water streams over them, welcoming, sluicing the bad energy from Hux’s skin as Ben holds him, nose buried in his hair, lips just grazing the shell of Hux’s ear. 

“We’re really here,” Hux whispers, just loudly enough to be heard over the water. Here, where it had all started. 

Ben’s embrace tightens, and Hux reaches up to thread his fingers through the hand that rests against his chest. There’s one difference now, even if much else is the same; there’s a ring, silver and black, where before there was none. 

“Would you change anything?” Hux asks, squeezing Ben’s hand, the engagement band biting into his finger. 

“Only that it had happened sooner,” Ben says, words muted by the shower. He kisses Hux’s ear, flicking his tongue over the sensitive curve. 

Hux shivers, leaning back into Ben’s arms. He turns his head, craning back for an off-center kiss. “Do you promise we’ll spend the rest of our lives making up for it?” 

Hux can feel Ben smile, even though his eyes are closed. “I do,” he says. 


	3. Words on a Stone

The gradual accumulation of the minutiae of a person, the cataloguing of microexpressions and silent tells, the development of a near sixth-sense in relation to someone else is a process that Ben had not even been aware he’d missed in his thirty years of life. When he’d been younger, these weren’t the kinds of details that he’d been attuned to. Now, however, they constitute the threads that weave his life together with that of the man he loves.

He knows Hux is awake now, for instance, and trying to hide it. He can tell because the rise and fall of his chest is more shallow, and every fifteen to twenty seconds a muscle below his jaw will twitch, because he’s consciously forcing himself to stop grinding his teeth. Every time he does so, a little line appears next to his right eye.

Ben is fairly sure that Hux’s contained restlessness is what had woken him up, and that Hux is either doing his best to let Ben sleep longer or wanting to confront his inner demons on his own. Ben is not, however, inclined to let him do so.

He makes a show of pretending to wake up, stretching and rolling fully over on his side to face Hux, pulling the blankets farther over them. Then he gently loops an arm around Hux’s waist and leans close to kiss the side of his cheek; Hux gives up pretending to be asleep then and rolls over toward Ben, pressing himself against Ben’s chest like he’s clinging to a life raft.

Ben smiles, stroking his hand along Hux’s warm back to comb through the soft, damp hair at the nape of his neck. “You okay?” he asks, kissing the top of Hux’s head.

“No,” Hux admits, predictably. The word is muffled, sounding small and pitiful and he heaves a humid sigh against Ben’s chest.

Ben tries not to laugh, but can’t help himself. Hux has degrees of anxiety Ben’s learned to recognize in manners of postures and tones and behavior, from the _barely holding it together_ _without having a fit_ type that he’d been hovering near the day before after the photography debacle, to the _behaving dramatically because I like it when you comfort me_ variety.

True to form, Hux shifts his leg and plants one arctic-temperature foot on Ben’s calf, and Ben’s laughter is immediately interrupted by a curse. There’s a brief struggle in which Hux tries to get his other foot into play while Ben squirms away, resulting in the two of them out of breath and knotted in the sheets, Hux firmly pinned to the bed.

“I need you to take me seriously,” Hux says in an authoritative tone. His bottom lip pokes out and he blows a piece of hair out of eye.

“I take you very seriously,” Ben says, dipping his head to nuzzle below Hux’s ear.

Hux’s eyes narrow and he tries to turn his head away. “I’m not sensing that.”

Ben moves his weight, aligning their hips so Hux can feel his erection. Hux’s eyes take on a glassy, cat-like look and he smiles like he’s achieved a desired result to a premeditated plan. Maybe he had.

Ben kisses along his jaw, feeling Hux tilt his head back to open his neck for Ben’s lips. Nibbling at the skin just above Hux’s collarbone, Ben hums thoughtfully. “I was thinking. We should probably refrain until our wedding night.” He rolls his hips again; Hux was hard now, too. “You know. So we can pretend to be virginal.”

Hux’s chest spasms with incredulous laughter and he squirms, pushing at Ben who facilitates him by flopping to his back on the bed and letting Hux roll atop him, struggling to untangle himself from the sheet enough to straddle Ben’s hips

“If you _really_ want me to be an utter wreck on the day you marry me, deny me sex,” Hux says, glaring down at Ben but not managing to hide his smile. He slides his hands along Ben’s forearms, coaxing Ben’s wrists above his head and lacing their fingers together.

Ben’s belly flips at the words _the day you marry me,_ a reaction he should be used to after five months of planning and discussing it, but feeling the approach of it drawing nearer and hearing Hux voice it aloud never fails to make him dizzy.

“Don’t you want it to be special?” Ben asks coyly, squeezing Hux’s hands.

Hux’s grip tightens, and he leans down to leave feather soft kisses along the curve of Ben’s jaw, warm lips tasting his earlobe. “That’s what the lingerie is... _ahhh_..for.” The last syllable comes out in a stuttering breath as Ben ruts up against him, his still hard prick brushing Hux’s own, which starts to fill again. Hux’s grip relaxes, and Ben slips his hands free, tracing the lines of Hux’s torso while he arches into the touch.  

Reaching up and threading the fingers of one hand into Hux’s hair, Ben pulls him down for a kiss, feeling the rest of those mussed red locks tickling his forehead. He maps Hux’s slender shape from buttocks to narrow waist to the dip between his shoulder blades.

“How are you mine?” he asks against Hux’s lips, the words holding a familiar note of wonder.

Hux kisses him again, tiny pecks across Ben’s bottom lip. “Well,” he murmurs. “You were the unwitting victim of a poorly orchestrated long con.”

Ben laughs, squeezing Hux’s thigh. “Or _you_ were.”

Hux smiles, nuzzling the soft skin of Ben’s throat, just under his jaw. “I’m happy with the results, either way,” he says into Ben’s ear, then his lips move down along the line of Ben’s neck, over his collarbone.

Ben watches the top of his red-gold head as Hux shifts over him, inching down his body and tracing a path with hungry kisses, nipping where the skin is soft, laving the definition of muscles with his tongue. Ben groans when Hux slips his hand between his legs, gently urging them apart and cupping his balls, short nails tickling the underside, making Ben shiver.

Hux takes him in his mouth in one, long dip of his head, giving Ben the full show of hollowed cheeks and sultry look from beneath those translucent eyelashes. Ben tries to keep his eyes on Hux’s, because watching the glimmer of satisfaction that Hux gets from undoing Ben with his mouth is half the pleasure in Hux’s artistry. With every bob of Hux’s head, though, it gets more difficult to focus on anything but the glide of his tongue and the way he makes it especially loud. Always does, because he knows it leaves Ben flushed and impossibly turned on.

A natural shift of Hux’s hand, and one finger slips farther between Ben’s legs, just brushing the rim of his entrance, making him flinch with a spark of unexpected sensation; Hux is careful to avoid that particular erogenous zone after the last time, when Ben hadn’t been ready for it. Even though Hux moves his hand away again, kneading the muscle of Ben’s inner thigh, the need for more of that touch pools in Ben’s belly.

Hux is still working his cock languidly, taking his time with his eyes closed now as Ben reaches over and finds the travel-size bottle of lube stashed in the open nightstand drawer. Desire having not quite caught up with his ability to form the words to articulate it, Ben simply tosses the lube onto the bed inches from Hux’s elbow.

The bottle bouncing onto the comforter catches Hux’s attention, and is in his hand a moment later, lid flicked open and upended over his palm. For a moment, breathless with anticipation, Ben thinks Hux has gleaned his unspoken want, but then Hux’s palm wraps around his cock again, slicking the shaft with full strokes; Ben’s hips twitch up, feeling his climax too close because it’s morning and because Hux is very good at what he does. Immediately trying to draw back from that perfect mouth, pressing himself uselessly down into the mattress, Ben reaches down and grabs the closest part of Hux’s body.

Fingers wrapped around Hux’s wrist, Ben awkwardly pushes the hand down, over his belly, leaving it in the crease where thigh meets hip when he can’t reach farther. Cheeks hot, Ben looks at Hux and sees Hux looking back at him with round, confused eyes.

“Touch me,” Ben whispers, because that’s as clear as he can manage to be in the moment.

Hux blinks at him, raising his head so he can speak. “You mean…?”

Ben nods, pulling one knee up and letting it fall to the side, and Hux bites his bottom lip with a look of raw lust that makes Ben’s stomach drop and his cock twitch.

“You sure, baby?” Hux asks, smoothing Ben’s thigh gently. “Because we d…”

“I’m sure,” Ben interrupts him hoarsely, skin tingling beneath Hux’s hands.

Hux’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, the green of his eyes swallowed by black as he looks up at Ben, not breaking the gaze until he lowers his mouth to Ben’s inner thigh. Teeth just barely graze the skin there, enough to make Ben shift beneath him with a needy whine, muffled when he drapes an arm over his face.

He tries not to think of the fact that Hux’s family is on the other side of their closed door, and whether they know what he and Hux are doing in here.

Ben’s breath catches when he feels Hux’s tongue, flat and wet, teasing at the skin beneath his balls, exhaling warm air through his nose that tickles the fine hair there. Heart thudding as Hux’s tongue slides lower, Ben pulls the nearby pillow toward himself to hide his burning cheeks beneath one edge; Hux pauses at the movement, then smoothes Ben’s calf with a reassuring touch. The air between them is charged with an unspoken question, Hux waiting for Ben to change his mind about this, but Ben doesn’t—instead, he lets his leg sway briefly toward Hux, telling him silently not to stop.

Hux’s mouth returns cautiously to him, lower this time, and the tip of his tongue wettens the skin just above Ben’s entrance, all the progress toward this new thing advertised, careful, so that they are just drifting toward it instead of tumbling. It gives Ben time to get used to the way it feels to be vulnerable this way, to let Hux unlock this intimacy Ben thought he’d never be ready for, and he’s shivering by the time Hux guides his mouth lower, tongue hot and gentle as it maps the shape of him.

Slowly, Ben manages to uncurl his stiff fingers from the pillow, reaching down with eyes still squeezed shut to touch Hux’s hair, grounding himself to Hux instead of drifting off into only the sensations of it. He doesn’t realize that he’s trembling until Hux’s hand finds his, fingertips fluttering over the outline of bones and tendons, coaxing him to relax, to let the air out of his lungs and take another slow, deep breath. He feels himself loosen beneath Hux’s tongue, feels the tip of it work through the muscle, and his stomach contracts with unexpected pleasure instead of anxiety. He must have made some sort of sound, because Hux echoes it, spreads his hand over Ben’s belly to knead the muscle, humming in pleasure.

Hux takes his time, the stroke and press of his tongue mixed in with hot kisses until Ben finally pulls the pillow away from his face, tilts his head back with half-closed eyes and lips open, breathing as relaxed and slow as Hux’s touch. Even the sound of a door closing down the hall and voices fading down the staircase doesn’t quite register through the lulled state Hux has drawn him into.

As though this is what Hux had been waiting for, Ben feels the bed shift, seeing Hux sit up through the shadow of his eyelashes. He hears the soft plastic click of the lube being opened, and takes a shuddering breath when he feels Hux’s tongue replaced by one slick, warm finger. Ben tries not to tense up again as Hux circles his rim, making it wet before finally coaxing the tip inside.

Ben had expected it to feel strange, intrusive, after so many years of avoiding this part of his body, but having Hux inside him, even just like this, is more heady then their first time together had been. Instead of recoiling, Ben finds himself lifting his hips up to meet Hux’s touch, the single finger moving more deeply inside him, the stretch gentle, barely there with how relaxed Ben is now.

Hux isn’t insistent, letting him get used this new thing slowly. Ben’s eyes finally flutter open, seeing Hux gazing down, watching himself disappear inside Ben; his cheek is resting on Ben’s knee, flushed and warm, hair falling over his forehead. The way Hux looks as turned on by this as Ben feels makes his gut coil with pleasure; Ben wants to tell him that he wants more, can’t think of how to say it, so he shifts his knee under Hux’s head, making him look up so their eyes meet. Hux’s are already impossibly dark, and he seems to read the unspoken request easily, wetting his lips again with his tongue as he draws the single finger slowly out to coat himself with more lubrication.

Ben stifles a low moan by biting his bottom lip as Hux presses two fingers inside him slowly, and even though his eyes drift mostly closed again, Ben can see Hux watching him, looking for hints that he’s touching Ben the right way, bringing him pleasure. When he finds just the right spot, Ben’s mouth falls open again with a hiss of indrawn air—Hux echoes the sound, buries a small groan against Ben’s knee as his free hand curls around Ben’s calf.

Hux is sitting between his legs in such a way that Ben can feel his cock heavy against the back of his thigh, a smear of sticky moisture clinging to Ben’s skin as Hux ruts almost unconsciously against him in rhythm with the slide of his fingers in and out. He makes use of his newest discovery of Ben’s body, rubbing against that bundle of nerves until Ben feels himself getting close.

Twitching his leg again, Ben captures Hux’s attention and finally manages a string of words. “Don’t...too close. Don’t want to come yet.”

Hux stills, staring into his eyes. “Tell me what you want,” he says, voice thick.

Ben hadn’t known what he wanted until now, not until Hux had unwound him and made everything feel right. “I want you,” he tells him quietly. “All of you.”

Hux’s eyebrows twitch up, and he looks unsure, caught between lust and the need to spell things out between them. “You want...sex?” Hux bites his lip, brows pinching over his nose now, like that had come out wrong. “I mean...me. Inside you.” Curiously, this makes Hux’s ears turn pink.

Ben can’t help but smile at that, melting a bit even though his heart speeds up with the decision to change their dynamic this way, to let go of the past completely. “If you want.”

Hux makes a small sound that might have been a strangled laugh, and the rest of his face colors. “Fuck yes,” he says in a throaty purr, moving his fingers again. This time, he spreads them apart, and Ben turns his face back into the pillow. Not to hide, but to focus on nothing but the way it feels as Hux slowly works him open.

He’s managed three fingers by the time he finally pulls out, and Ben looks down then to see Hux with the bottle of lube in his hand again. At first, Ben thinks he means to work in yet another finger, but he coats his cock instead, which is red and thick—the sight, the reality of what is about to happen, makes Ben’s own prick jump and his stomach flutter with nerves and desire in equal measure. Somehow, impossibly, he feels like a virgin, which is an unexpected gift he had never even hoped for.

Like he’d heard this thought, Hux looks up at him then with an expression that is similarly shy, as though they hadn’t had sex a thousand times by now. His face looks young, framed by a fall of red hair which he drags one sticky hand through, not seeming to notice the way he’d just gotten lube in it.

Ben’s chest twists with fondness and he reaches down and holds his hand out for Hux, who lets Ben pull him up until he’s draped over him, elbows planted on either side of Ben’s head. They try to kiss each other, noses bumping as they both go for different angles, until Ben smiles up at him and lets Hux bring their lips together.

Hux kisses him deeply, and Ben is drowning in it when he feels Hux press up against the underside of his balls, shifting his hips until the head of his cock is just nudging Ben’s entrance. Ben had imagined this moment more than once, had thought he’d panic, want to get away, feel sick at his stomach, and yet all he feels is the need to fully belong to Hux, in all the ways he can.

Hux’s lips are hot against his ear. “You sure?” he asks one more time.

Ben answers by drawing both knees up, turning his head so he can close his teeth around Hux’s earlobe. “Very.”

Hux sighs, the sound like a mix of relief and desire as he reaches between their bodies to position himself and then guide his cock slowly inside. His forehead falls heavily to Ben’s shoulder as he slides deeper, and Ben tangles one hand in Hux’s hair, trying to breathe evenly even though every nerve in his body is alight and his throat is tight.

“Jesus,” Hux whispers against Ben’s neck when their hips meet. He balances himself so he can look down into Ben’s eyes. He doesn’t say anything else as they lie still together, and Ben knows he’s letting him get used to the feeling, waiting for direction. Everything in Ben is tight, from his belly to the clench around Hux’s thick cock, but he wills himself to relax one muscle at a time.

Hux seems to feel it, his lips parted and eyelids drifting down. Then Ben leans up to kiss him, reaches down with both hands to cup them over Hux’s ass, guiding him to move.

He does move, slowly at first, muscles flexing beneath Ben’s palms and breath hot against his throat. Ben keeps his face buried in the crook of Hux’s shoulder, being taken apart slowly, unable to find where he most wants to put his hands. Everything is intoxicating, from the way Hux’s hips roll down to meet his own to the soft hair tickling his cheek to the hand that Hux wraps around his thigh to guide one leg higher.

Hux is trembling against him, and Ben can feel that he’s trying to contain a need for _more_ , which serves to make Ben need it just as badly. He curls one leg over Hux’s thigh, digs the fingers of one hand into Hux’s tense shoulder, and lifts his hips to meet first one thrust, then another, until they are rocking together faster and harder. It pulls the most delicious sounds from Hux, muffled against Ben’s neck, overlapped by the way the bed creaks beneath them.

Ben can feel Hux trying to find the right angle, but they are both too desperate to get it right, not this time, and with only a choked attempt at a warning, Hux’s hips stutter hard and Ben feels him coming, hot inside him, the uneven strokes that follow Hux’s climax sounding obscenely wet. That sound and the gasp of pure relief Hux makes, unlike any sound he’s ever made during sex, is enough to send Ben over the edge himself with only a few, fumbled stroke—-he’d been near enough this entire time, and doesn’t bother to quell the moan that spills from his throat as he spends himself against Hux’s belly.

They lay there, plastered to each other and breathing hard; Hux’s heart is hammering in his chest, the vibration of it keeping pace with Ben’s.

Outside the door, someone clears their throat, and seems to try to shuffle away quietly, and Hux quivers with a bark of laughter and rolls off Ben. He rakes his hand through his hair again as Ben rolls over to curl into him, and only then does Hux seem to realize he’s gotten lube in it.

“Shit,” he mutters, then laughs breathlessly. His face and shoulders are pink, belly sticky, and his cock is slowly going soft against his hip.

Ben lays his face against Hux’s chest, needing the arm that is wrapped beneath his head to keep from flying apart with feelings. His eyes flutter closed when Hux presses a kiss into his damp hair.

“That was…” Ben tries, faltering.

Hux inhales, chest rising and falling beneath Ben’s head. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It was.”

It takes a long time to come down, longer than usual for Ben, although at some point Hux seems to drift into a drowsy, half-sleep state. It’s not until Hux’s phone pings on the bedside table that either of them stir.

Hux groans, carding his fingers through Ben’s hair and kneading his scalp almost absently. “Maybe we should just stay in here until Saturday,” he mumbles, yawning and scrubbing his free hand across his face.

Ben tilts his head to nuzzle the soft space beneath Hux’s ear, making him smile and then twitch at the ghost of ticklish breath when Ben speaks. “You don’t think we’d get bored?”

Hux’s chest spasms with muffled laughter and he turns his head to look down at Ben. “I’m pretty sure we could find something to do,” he promises with an undeniably hungry look in his green eyes.

Ben smirks. “We have to go find out which of your relatives we traumatized with our indiscreet activities.”

Hux reaches out and grabs his cell phone off the bedside table. “Let’s find out,” he says, swiping the screen open and checking his text messages. He angles the phone where Ben can see it by habit.

There are two texts, one from Phasma letting them know she and Mitaka had boarded their plane safely and were on the way to Atlanta, and the other from Hux’s brother.

_(Donnie): Good thing that wasn’t mom outside your door this morning. Breakfast is almost ready. Go wash the fluids off and come downstairs.”_

Ben chuckles at Hux’s appalled expression, and gets the look turned on him.

“Ben. How am I supposed to face my brother after this?” Hux brandishes the phone at him.

Reaching up, Ben ruffles Hux’s sticky hair. “Well, he’s not wrong.”

Hux’s cheeks flush and he swats Ben away. “I’m glad you’re not embarrassed,” he mumbles, kicking what’s left of the bedclothes off and rolling out of bed.

Ben follows him into the shower and they make quick work of getting clean, even though if Ben could have his way, he’d take his time with the process; Hux seems to have a particular fondness for the ritual they’d developed in the bathroom, washing one another with singular attention, like a form of worship.

Instead, they are toweled off and dressed and slinking downstairs (or rather, Hux is slinking and Ben is following, amused, in his wake) in just half an hour, emerging into the kitchen where the familiar smells of biscuits and bacon and much needed coffee hang on the air.

“Morning, lovebirds,” Donnie says from where he is holding up the counter. He salutes them with his steaming coffee mug, bearing the caricature of a rooster in a checked apron.

Hux frowns. “Someone buy that mug just for you? It’s fitting.”

Donnie turns it around and looks at it as Ben insinuates himself between the two brothers to open the cabinet. He takes down two more mugs, considers them, then puts the plain black one back onto the shelf in favor of one decorated with vegetables that says _“romaine calm and carrot on._ ” He fills it with coffee and hands it to Hux, who blow across it before taking a grateful sip.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” Ben asks, pouring his own cup and taking the milk out of the refrigerator. “We need to clean out the barn for the reception?”

Hux opens his mouth to reply, looks at his coffee cup for several seconds, then huffs. “Very funny, Ben.”

Ben smiles, coaxing a piece of still-hot bacon out off a plate covered with a paper towel. It’s halfway to his mouth when Aislain appears in the doorway.

“Don’t spoil your breakfast, Ben,” she admonishes, and Ben hurriedly stuffs the entire piece in his mouth.

“She has a fine-tuned radar for people eating out of turn,” Donnie says. “She’ll swoop in from anywhere in the house the second you dip into something you’re not supposed to have yet.”

“Mind your manners, Domhnall Hux,” she says, crossing the kitchen to kiss Hux’s cheek, then Ben’s. “Good morning, boys. Sleep well?”

Donnie snorts into his coffee and leaves the kitchen, and Hux sighs.

“We did,” Ben tells her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and giving Aislain a one-armed embrace that effectively folds the smaller woman to his side. It makes him think of his own mother, and the fact that she’ll be meeting Aislain for the first time in just two days, and it will be the first time their families have come together.

That’s the topic at breakfast, with Ben answering a score of questions about the previously off-limits topic of his parents, telling everyone about his eccentric Uncle Luke (which seems to make Hux increasingly nervous), describing his cousin Rey and how he’d met Phasma in the military. Despite the impending events, no one seems to be in a hurry, which is starkly unlike the way Ben had grown up on the east coast. They talk about their house, doing yard work, the woes of having to deal with snow on one’s own property, how they’ve talked about getting a dog and building a treehouse some day if they ever have a family, and the best part of it is that this time, all of it’s real. This time there are no lies or half truths—just the realities and the dreams they want to make tangible.

After the meal, Ben follows Hux into the kitchen again, carrying an armful of plates to the sink. He pauses at the lip of it, staring down in amusement while Hux scrapes uneaten eggs out of a bowl into the trash.

“Hux. There’s a cat in the sink.”

Hux stops mid-motion, turning his head. Then he crosses to the sink and peers in. All three of them, Ben, Hux, and cat, regard one another until Aislain appears with her own load of used dishes.

“That’s Sabrina,” she says cheerfully. “She likes to drink out of the tap no matter how many fresh bowls of water I put out.”

Hux looks at her with a fond smile. “You got a cat.”

“Shoo,” Aislain says, and Sabrina bounds out of the sink and onto the floor, immediately bumping her head on Ben’s leg. “I actually got two cats,” she says, smiling as she deposits the dishes in the sink. “Mal’s around here somewhere. Wherever you wouldn’t expect to find a cat.”

Hux laughs as the plate he’d been holding settles gently into the sink along with the rest of the dishes. “There are no _usual places_ to find cats, mother.”

Ben sets his dishes down and turns on the faucet. “Unless you have an open box somewhere. Good tool if you ever need to catch one.”

“I’ll remember that,” Aislain says with a smile in her voice. “What are you boys planning for the rest of the morning?”

Hux glances at Ben, one hand gripping the edge of the sink. “I was thinking we could go down to see Da.” There’s a question in his eyes—not really that he’s asking Ben wordlessly if that’s okay with him, but that he’s asking for help.

Ben answers by wrapping an arm around Hux’s shoulders and kissing his forehead, and Aislain pauses while wiping the counter and regards her son with an expression that seems pleased and sad at the same time.

“I think that’s a good idea,” she says softly. “I think he’ll be glad to see you.”

It’s a strange image, the idea of Brendol Hux looking down on them from on high, but Ben can’t stop thinking about it as they finish cleaning the kitchen and put on their shoes to walk down to the cemetery.

They take the same path they’d walked almost a year ago, down a rutted dirt road nearly overgrown with weeds, dry and dusty as it winds through the trees. Hux seems to be thinking, expression distant and pensive; he doesn’t offer to discuss what’s on his mind, but he does reach out and thread his fingers through Ben’s. Ben doesn’t ask questions, knows that some topics need to be approached when they’re not looming quite so large on the horizon.

Hux pauses abruptly at the ingress of the little cemetery: an arch of wrought iron vines and leaves that spans the road and bears up a faded wooden sign proclaiming the plot of land _Locust Grove_. It’s an ironic name for a place associated with consecrated biblical practices, but Ben doesn’t voice that thought; he has no doubt that the same thing has crossed Hux’s mind more than once.

They linger at the gate, Hux staring straight ahead across the manicured green while a warm breeze ruffles his hair—he hadn’t bothered with any of his myriad products or a razor since they’d left home, and the red stubble that had started to fill in the hollows of his cheeks and the line of his jaw made him look like a soldier just returned from the war. He has that haunted look in his eyes, like he’s afraid of coming home after all this time to find out that things have irrevocably changed, and that he’s just a stranger now.

Hux glances at him then, giving Ben that look that seems to be asking for some sort of help that Hux can’t define, and he rakes one hand back through his hair and holds it back. The sun shines down on them in the little hollow, and Hux’s skin is pinkening just from this short summer walk, and there are little lines of consternation crossing his forehead. He doesn’t seem to know what to say, and Ben thinks there probably aren’t any words. Not really.

It seems to comfort him when Ben squeezes Hux’s hand, the fine bones suddenly seeming almost fragile, the skin paper-thin and soft. Hux squeezes back, sighs, and starts walking again, passing beneath the sign and taking a footpath that leads them toward the far south side of the lot.

The cemetery is too small to have paved avenues, and they move through it on what is little more than an indentation of flattened grass winding through the headstones and markers without much method. It’s deserted today, and the way the stones are weathered and pocked here and there with lichen makes the cemetery seem old enough to have housed generations of Hux’s ancestors. It carries that sense of quiet, too, like the world around it is holding its breath.

It’s been eleven months since they were here last, and the plot Hux leads them to has long since settled, grown up with summer-dry grass and clover that’s sprouting little white flowers. When Hux stops, his fingers get tighter around Ben’s, the short nail of his pinkie digging into the skin between Ben’s knuckles. They stand there for a long moment, the facade of the modest headstone sinking into and re-emerging from the dappled shadows of the clouds moving overhead.

“ _In loving memory of Brendol J Hux_ ,” Hux reads, syllables monotone. They stand there for a moment longer while the words hang on the air, and then Hux steps closer to Ben, nestling behind Ben’s shoulder, like he needs to put distance between himself and everything he’s reminded of in this moment.

“Do you think this is how we all end up?” Hux asks. “Words on a stone somewhere in the middle of nowhere?” His voice goes up a bit, reedy.

“No,” Ben says, considering it. “I think we end up being how others remember us, when they’re standing there looking down at those stones. How we’re looking down at this one, right now.”

He feels Hux look at him, and Ben tears his gaze away from the marker and sees that Hux’s eyes are shimmering. “I would have really liked for him to know you,” Hux says softly, looking down at the grave site again. “I feel sorry for myself, and it’s dumb, because he’s the one that’s dead.”

Ben can almost hear Hux gritting his teeth, which he does when he’s wound too tightly with feelings he can’t sort out. It’s the kind of feeling which, in Ben, makes him want to put his fist through a wall.

“Tell him what you want him to know,” Ben suggests, and can’t help thinking that there’s at least one grave he would like to speak to.

Hux says nothing for a few moments, then takes a deep, shuddering breath and expels it slowly. When he speaks, Ben can tell it isn’t to him.

“I want you to know that I did amount to something in the end. That I lived up to my potential. I’m proud of who I am and won’t ever apologize for it.” Hux’s voice cracks on this last word. His next are quieter, like it’s a kind of secret wish that won’t come true if overheard. “And someone loves me as much as I love them. I’m not alone.”

Hux trails off, clearing his throat. Ben releases his hand and pulls him into an embrace, lost for the right words, but understanding what Hux needs to know anyway. Hux remains in eye contact with the memorial to his father, head turned against Ben’s shoulder as though challenging Brendol’s ghost to dispute this. When nothing is forthcoming, Hux finally turns away and hides his face against Ben’s neck.

A year before, they’d made this same trip back to Hux’s childhood home holding hands in the pouring rain, shoes made heavy by the sucking red clay mud, chilled to the bone in the middle of the summer.

This time, though the sky is burgeoning with restless clouds driven along on an eastern wind, the sun stays overhead, the afternoon as warm around them as a blanket. Once again, they are both alone and together with their thoughts on the way back. Hux with memories of his father, perhaps, and Ben thinking about the way life always seems to be caught somewhere between leaving things behind and starting things anew.

Like maybe people don’t really ever cross that threshold, but keep one foot in the past to remind them where they’ve been, even if they’re facing forward and happy with where they’re going.


	4. Four Walls And A Roof

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nsfw. Hide yer phones on the train!

 

Dust gathers behind the treads of the late-model blue pickup, the twin plumes whisked away on the gathering wind that rattles the leaves of the oaks framing the driveway. Hux doesn’t trust the truck Aislain had acquired since they were last in Tully; it has dents in the hood and in the roof from being pelted with hail, rust over the back wheel-wells, and the tailgate won’t close.

“I don’t know why she traded the Accord for that thing,” Hux grouses.

“For the state of the art cassette player?” Ben suggests. Ben’s sitting in Brendol’s old rocking chair behind him while Hux stands and glares dubiously after the pickup, waiting for it to break down so he can go to Aislain’s rescue. He watches as it rolls to a stop at the end of the drive, and he can’t help a huff of laughter when his mother turns on her left blinker. There’s no one around, for miles maybe, except Hux and Ben. She pulls out onto the road and is almost out of sight before Ben speaks again.

“Or maybe it was because your dad used to drive it.”

Hux looks back at him, feeling his stomach sink; he hadn’t even thought of that. Ben must have seen it on his face because he holds his hand out.

“C’mere,” he says, flexing his fingers and wiggling them invitingly.

Hux shuffles over slowly, his feet feeling heavy suddenly as he remembers how he'd used to ride in his dad's old Buick down to the hardware store when he was a kid. That was the car they’d had before the Honda.

Ben grasps Hux’s fingers while Hux is thinking about how all the nails and brackets and screws in their bins seemed like fun, displayed like that. Like candy to fill a bag with. And how the place had always smelled like sawdust from freshly cut lumber. 

He lets Ben pull him down into his lap, the awkward position nearly dumping them out onto the porch until Ben rocks the chair back with his toes and lets Hux lean against him, distributing their weight until the chair tilts backward on its own. They can’t move this way, but it’s nice.

“You think she’s okay?” Hux asks, meaning his mother, even though Ben probably doesn’t know her well enough to judge.

As if to answer that question on Ben’s behalf, the curtains in the window behind them stir and a brown and gold patchwork face peers out curiously. Blue eyes are riveted by Hux, ears perked, and as they regard one another, the cat says something that doesn’t quite translate through the glass. Hux smiles, realizing this must be Mal, who hadn’t yet made his appearance. If nothing else, his mother has two familiars watching out for her.

Ben, facing the other direction, doesn’t see the cat. “I think she will be, he says, resting his cheek against Hux’s shoulder. “She talks to my mom a lot.”

Aislain and Leia had definitely struck up a friendship since the secretly fake engagement had become official. The wedding will be the first time they meet, the first time both sides of their families meet. New York and Georgia, Catholic and Jewish, all with Ben and Hux somewhere in between.

“Everyone lives so far apart,” Hux says, stretching his arm out behind them to tap his fingernails lightly on the glass, making the cat perk up and eye him with a predatory gleam.

Ben doesn’t say anything to that, since there really isn’t a practical solution. Instead, he gives Hux a comforting, gentle squeeze with the arm wrapped around his waist. Hux hears the ice cubes in Ben’s glass of water pinging as he turns his head to take a sip, and Hux glances away from the cat just in time for Ben to offer him a drink.

The glass is sweaty with condensation in Hux’s hand, and it seems like a better idea to roll the outside of it over his forehead, letting the chilly moisture collect on his skin. The early afternoon had been nice when they’d walked down to the cemetery, with a brisk breeze warding off the heat, but as the day waned, the breeze had tapered off and left behind humid, sticky air. The clouds that had been drifting by peacefully after breakfast are now beginning to gather, steely gray and promising the sort of rain that would have steam rising from the overheated earth. Hux is taking a long drink of the blessedly cold water when Ben speaks again.

“We should have everyone up to our place every year. We can make up another holiday.”

Hux smiles, bottom lip still pressed against the glass. “What kind of holiday?”

Ben’s uses the tips of his toes to coax a gentle sway out of the rocking chair, which creaks softly. “I don’t know. Maybe some combination of Halloween, your birthday, and Thanksgiving.”

Hux laughs, trying to imagine the way his mother would short circuit while trying to prepare a meal that would suit all three occasions. Ben’s idea is clever though, because it neatly solves the problem of whose family to visit on a holiday they all share. He’s about to delve into that subject, to start to assimilate details and file them away for later, when his phone buzzes in his pocket, distracting him.

Squirming on Ben’s lap to tug his cell out, Hux nearly manages to topple himself out of the chair again as it wobbles forward; only Ben’s strong arm around his waist keeps him secure.

“It’s Phasma,” Hux shares as he settles back against Ben’s chest, the rocking chair going still again. She’s sent only one text today, letting them know she and Mitaka had arrived safely in Atlanta and were on their way to their hotel. Hux reads this new communication and laughs softly.

“She says Mitaka wants to know if we’re sure we don’t want him to hire strippers to show up at the house tonight.”

Ben’s chest dips beneath him as he snorts. “She’s tormenting him. There’s no way he suggested that.”

“I know,” Hux says, typing back a response, asking her what time they plan to be here on Saturday. “He’s probably beside himself, though. He gets even more anxious trying to plan things than I do.”

He feels Ben’s fingers carding through the fringe at the nape of his neck, his touch fond. “You’re just a perfectionist,” Ben says.

Hux rests his phone against his knee. “I’m not sure a bachelor party in Atlanta was part of that vision of perfection I had, to be honest.” He turns his head so he can see Ben’s face, offering him a half-smile.

Ben leans in to give him a soft peck on the lips. “You never imagined that one, last hurrah before you were shackled to the ball and chain? No one, final chance to sow your oats?”

Hux laughs, deeply and from the belly. “Sow my oats? Those would be barren fields, sweetheart.”

Ben dips his head back to Hux’s shoulder, vibrating with laughter. Hux presses his lips to Ben’s summer-warm hair, smiling; it feels like the heaviness of the day has been seeping away ever since they’d left the cemetery, like Hux had been able to lay down a burden at his father’s grave and walk away from it. From the past.

“We  _should_  have a bachelor party,” Hux says, if for no other reason than that it suddenly seems like a rite of passage they shouldn’t miss out on. He almost laughs again when Ben turns his face up and gives him a stricken look.

“I have an idea,” Hux says, starting to unfold himself from the chair. His feet touch the porch just as a low rumble of thunder shudders overhead. He looks back to Ben, is about to share his impromptu inspiration when he finds Ben eyeing him with an interest that is less curious in nature. He nudges Hux’s foot with the toe of his shoe, still slumped back comfortably in the rocking chair.

“You’re going to strip for me instead?”

Hux smirks. “There wouldn’t be anything to differentiate that from any other day, though,” he says, reaching out for Ben’s hand and pulling him up.

When he’s on his feet, Hux wraps his arms around Ben’s waist and kisses him, taking his time to savor Ben’s soft lips and his familiar taste. With Aislain off to the grocery store, and Donnie and Holly visiting one of Donnie’s high school friends, this is the first time they’ve been alone since leaving their house in Chicago.  It’s likely the last time they will be, too, until their wedding night. Objectively, Hux knows they have a lifetime of nights to themselves, but there are only a finite number left on this side of the threshold—everything after this is about holding up the four walls and the roof they’ve built, instead of watching how it’s all coming together around them.

When they part, Ben’s hands linger on Hux’s waist, one of them snaking around to his lower back to pull Hux flush against him once more, but Hux pulls away, catching Ben’s forearms and coaxing him along toward the door. Hux walks backwards, keeping Ben’s eyes riveted to his own, enjoying the way Ben’s expression is caught between puzzled and amused.

Hux lets him go when they reach the door, turning around and unlatching the screen. Only lightning-fast reflexes allow him to get his foot wedged in the crack of the door quickly enough to  block the small, dark shape that tries to escape; he gently nudges the cat away and slips inside.

He makes immediately for the kitchen, Ben trailing behind him.

“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” Ben asks, leaning one hip against the island counter and folding his arms as Hux begins to open cabinets.

“I told you,” Hux says, taking two glass tumblers off a shelf and setting them on the counter. He adds a bottle of whiskey and sees Ben’s eyebrow go up before Hux smirks at him and disappears into the pantry. He finds what he’s looking for on the top shelf—a wicker picnic basket worn soft on the edges with use, filled now with aprons and oven mitts. He takes it down, and for a moment is haunted by the fact that his mother probably hasn’t used it since they were children but kept it anyway, like using a memory to store the present in.

Exiting the pantry, he sets the basket on the island counter in front of Ben, who eyes him dubiously. “A picnic?” he asks, punctuating the inquiry by glancing over Hux’s shoulder to peer through the window where the afternoon continues to darken in the face of an incoming storm.

Hux unhooks a canvas shopping bag from its hook just inside the pantry door, bringing it back to the island and starting to remove the contents of the basket, redepositing them in the bag in orderly fashion. “Sort of,” he says. “Except overnight and rated X.”

Ben stares at him, then shakes his head with that amused, fond smile that Hux loves so much. It’s the way Ben looks at him when he’s being unreasonable, too, like being high-strung and irrational is simply part of his charm. Hux supposes that’s the kind of thing a person is lucky to find in their partner—someone who finds their idiosyncrasies and their flaws endearing.

“We’re not going to have a single minute to ourselves for days,” Hux explains, taking pity on his indulgent fiance. “Mom and Donnie and Holly will be back tonight, tomorrow will be more family, then Saturday...we’ll be lucky if we have time to speak until we’re saying our vows.”

Hux’s stomach churns when he mentions that, knowing he still has no idea what he’ll say to Ben when that moment comes, but he ignores it for the moment and steps around the counterspace to pull Ben close to him, hands on his hips. Hux leans in to press a delicate kiss to Ben’s jaw, makes a trail of them up to his ear before he whispers, “I want to spend one last night with my fiance where no one can hear us.” He emphasizes what kind of sounds he wants to go unnoticed by tonguing Ben’s earlobe and nipping it gently.

Ben hums in response. “I like where this is going,” he murmurs, craning his neck to graze Hux’s throat with his teeth. Ben’s hands find their way around to Hux’s ass, squeezing possessively.

Hux pulls away with a sigh then, knowing that if this goes any further, they won’t make it to their destination before the brewing storm erupts. “You’re in charge of dinner,” Hux says. “There’s an insulated bag in the pantry. Just rob the refrigerator.”

“That’s low, Hux,” Ben snorts, laughing, but he goes to find the cooler without further argument.

While Ben is packing food, Hux carries the picnic basket up the stairs to their bedroom, dropping it on the bed and crouching down to look through their big suitcase. Hux realizes as he sifts through it that it looks as though the two of them are traveling to their international destination to film a porn flick, though perhaps that is what one’s suitcase  _should_  look like en route to a honeymoon.

He has something particular in mind, something he’d packed with a bit of shy hopefulness, thinking that perhaps Ben would want to try something new. Hux had certainly not expected what had happened between them this morning, and even thinking about it now makes arousal pool in his abdomen. He runs the blunt tips of his fingernails over the outline of his cock through his jeans and shivers as he locates the item he’s looking for with the other hand.

He’d bought it back when Ben had taken his trip to California; drunk and lonely, Hux had spent hours on a sex site researching toys, imagining what they might want from each other in the future. Looking back, it was probably around the same time that Ben had walked into that shop on the west coast to look for an engagement band. Their divergent priorities in that moment are amusing now.

Hux stands and settles several acquisitions into the basket, adding their travel-size bottle of lube, then taking that out and replacing it with a bigger, unopened bottle from the checked luggage. Impulsively, he takes out a pair of sheer, red boxer briefs and a small plug, then shuts himself in the bathroom to work himself open just enough to slip the toy in. He admires the way the mesh briefs fit on his slender hips briefly in the mirror, half hard, before he shimmies back into his blue jeans and washes his hands.

When he opens the door, he finds Ben standing besides the bed, peering into the picnic basket. He glances at Hux, holding one of the new, scented-oil massage candles Hux had tossed in.

“You realize we’re never going to be able to give this basket back to your mother, right?”

Hux hadn’t thought of that. “She’ll never know. I’ll Febreze it.”

Ben makes a face, setting the candle back inside before starting to shift things around in the basket curiously. Hux sidles up to him, flicking the lid closed on Ben’s fingers. “No peeking.”

Snorting with laughter, Ben leans in for a quick peck. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but it’s about to storm. I’m not sure we have time for all of…” Ben glances at the basket. “...whatever this is.”

“Trust me,” Hux says with a smile.

 

Ten minutes later, armed with the basket, the insulated bag, two pillows, two towels, and a blanket, they are heading across the back yard for the woods at the edge of the property. Hux has left a note on the refrigerator for his mother, pinned beneath the Florida-shaped magnet, saying not to worry about them, and that they’ll be back in the morning. It’ll probably seem innocent enough to her, but Hux is sure it will not fool his brother. At least that will save Donnie the trouble of hesitating outside their door the next morning, wondering whether it’s safe to knock.

They’re half way there before the bottom drops out of the sky and they have to run for it.There’s something carefree and exhilarating about sprinting through the grass together, getting soaked by the summer thunderstorm; by the time they reach the ladder that leads up to the tree-house, they are both laughing at nothing but the fact that they exist in this particular moment, that they’re young and here beside each other and that they’re about to start the rest of their lives together.

Both of them are completely soaked when they make it into the tree-house, and Hux is lightheaded with a kind of giddy glee. All the pressure and stress of their upcoming wedding seems to have been put on hold, left behind in the house where they can forget about it for the night.

“A bachelor party in your childhood tree-house?” Ben teases, unrolling one of the towels he’d been carrying so it could dry, as much as it would in the damp air.

“Just bringing things full circle,” Hux says, peeling the blanket from around the other pillow and spreading it out on the floor. He’d kept his body hunched well enough over it that the blanket was only mildly damp.

Ben settles against the wall, chest rising and falling quickly as he catches his breath; not from being out of shape, but from laughing as they ran. He watches Hux with a look of adoration. “This is much better than getting wasted in a club,” he says with a smile. Thunder cracks overhead and Ben winces, peering out the window. “Even if we do get struck by lightning.”

Hux tucks his legs beneath him, crossed at the ankles, and opens the basket; he’d carried it looped around his forearm and the skin there is chafed and red where the frayed wicker handle had bit into the flesh.

“Well, if we do,” Hux muses thoughtfully, taking out a bottle of whiskey and the two tumblers he’d shoved inside two of his mother’s spare pot-holders to keep them from chipping, “we’re not going to care much.”

Hux pours them both a measure, handing Ben his glass before crawling over to settle between Ben’s parted thighs. Ben kisses the side of his head before combing Hux’s wet hair back.

“What do you think it’ll be like, five years from now. Ten?” Hux asks, leaning his head back against Ben’s shoulder. He takes a sip of his drink and notices that his red converses are darker where they’d gotten wet on the mad dash through the yard, and there are blades of grass from the freshly cut lawn stuck to the pristine white toe of the left shoe. Hux tries to rub it off with the toe of the other shoe, and only succeeds in smearing mud over it .

“Same as it is right now?” Ben suggests, stroking one hand over Hux’s chest to settle on his stomach. “I mean, isn’t that the idea? When you find something this good, you want it to stay that way?”

Hux tilts his head so he can see Ben’s face, just one corner of his mouth lifting. “You won’t ever get tired of me being difficult? Anxious and high strung?”

The rain is drumming against the roof and the thick canopy of leaves surrounding them, a heavy, static hum that drowns out all other sound. “I won’t ever get tired of you. For any reason,” Ben murmurs, nuzzling him.

Hux sighs, angling himself to meet Ben’s lips. “Even if I haven’t written my vows yet?”

Ben takes a long drink of his whiskey, closing his eyes as he rests his head against the wall behind him. “I haven’t either.”

“I’m still willing to elope” Hux offers, reaching out to grasp the liquor bottle and slide it across the floor. Ben accepts a refill eagerly before Hux tops his own glass off.

“You wouldn’t,” Ben says with a huff of laughter. “Not with all the work you put into it.”

Through the driving rain outside, Hux sees the murky yellow of headlights as they illuminate the driveway. It’s a few hours before dark, but the weather has created an untimely twilight. “I just feel like I make everything more difficult,” he says quietly. “Trying to fit everything into the mold of what I think is perfect.” He doesn’t just mean the wedding plans, but their house, their yard, his career.

Ben is silent for a moment, then brings his hand up to stroke Hux’s hair back again. “Things don’t always have to be perfect to be right, Hux. You’re not perfect, God knows I’m not. Our lives aren’t. But we... _we_  are right.”

The impact of those words settle over Hux and he feels his eyes mist. “We are, aren’t we?” he says.

They remain resting there against each other while their damp clothes dry from the heat of their bodies and they polish off half the bottle of whiskey while talking about everything from the kind of dog Ben wants to get to what series to watch next on Netflix. Another set of headlights rolls down the driveway an hour later, signalling that Donnie and Holly have returned, but no one comes looking for them.

It’s almost too dark to see by the time Hux takes a couple of regular candles from the basket and realizes he didn’t bring a lighter. Ben comes to the rescue with a book of matches he’d had tucked into his wallet. Best to be prepared, he tells Hux, in case you need to create ambiance on short notice.

Once lit, the interior of the tree-house is bathed in a comforting, pale-yellow glow, reflecting off the glass in the windows and making the outside world vanish. Hux can’t help agreeing with Ben that there is no kind of celebration of their upcoming vows that he’d rather have in this moment, no one he’d rather share it with.

“You hungry?” he asks Ben now that he has the candles set up. He takes a moment to drape one of the towels over the window that faces the house, piercing holes through the fabric as he pins them to the rusted nails that had once held hand-sewn curtains. He’ll have to buy his mother new towels. And a new picnic basket.

“A little,” Ben admits. “More buzzed.”

Hux pauses in unzipping the insulated bag, glancing at Ben. There’s a look in Ben's eyes that is definitely hungry, but for something completely different.

“In the mood for something else?” he asks, reaching out and sliding his hand up Ben’s calf, only able to reach the inside of his thigh from his position.

Ben answers this by setting his mostly empty tumbler aside and catching Hux’s hand, pulling gently. Hux shuffles over on his knees, straddling Ben’s lap and meeting his lips. Their kiss is interrupted only when Hux has to lift his arms over his head so Ben can pull his shirt off, then he’s enveloped in his embrace again. He’s overcome with the kind of raw need that has been ever-present over the last few weeks, like there’s a limited amount of time to work out sexual energy. Even though there isn’t. They can have each other whenever they want, as often as they need it.

“This morning…” Hux tries to say, out of breath from the press of Ben’s tongue. Even though he doesn’t finish that thought, Ben seems to grasp the train of it immediately, groaning into Hux’s mouth and dropping his hand down to thumb open the button of Hux’s jeans. It’s like he’s caught Hux’s meaning and decided he wants it again, and the thought sends a spike of arousal down Hux’s spine that is so hot and electric it makes his cock jump. He’s suddenly less hesitant about showing Ben what he’s brought from the house, almost pulls away to reach for it when Ben tugs Hux’s zipper open to expose the sheer, red briefs Hux had forgotten he’d even put on.

“Fuck,” Ben mutters, a hand on Hux’s chest gently coaxing him to sit back to he can take in the underwear. Hux bites his bottom lip when Ben strokes the pad of his thumb along the shape of his cock, which is almost full now, the transparent fabric holding it flush against his hip bone. “Where do you find this stuff?”

“Internet?” Hux says, smirking when Ben looks at him with dark eyes. “You like?”

Ben responds by pulling Hux against him tightly, and the world tilts as Ben lays him on his back, settling between his thighs, which part willingly for him. Ben crouches over him on his knees, lips ghosting over the outline of Hux’s cock, the fabric warm and damp where his tongue presses against it. Hux writhes beneath the attention, back arching off the floor as Ben’s lips find his belly, kissing along his torso until he taking a nipple between his teeth.

Ben nips, laves his tongue over the nub before tracing Hux’s chest with tongue and lips until his breath is hot in Hux’s ear. “You want me again?” he asks huskily, completely without hesitation, wanting it.

Hux’s stomach flips and he grips the back of Ben’s skull to pull him hard into a kiss, fingers tangled in his hair. When they finally part, both catching their breath, Hux peers into Ben’s eyes. “I thought we could. Try something. If you wanted.”

Ben seems not to register that there’s any question behind that, dipping his head instead to capture Hux’s lips again. Hux sinks into the kiss, scrabbling for the end of Ben’s t-shirt and tugging it roughly up over his torso, over his head. His fingers are working Ben’s jeans open with hazy muscle memory when Ben pulls back again, saliva connecting their lips until he licks it away.

“Try what?” he asks, voice thick with lust.

Hux struggles to sit up with his pants around his thighs, and he pushes them down, the underwear going as well. Ben just watches him from his knees until Hux is naked and sitting upright, reaching for the basket.

“This isn’t…” he begins. “You can say no.” Hux insists, earning a quizzical look from Ben even as Ben is slowly removing his own jeans.

“Say no to what?” Ben asks as his boxers slip down over his cock, heavy and thick. Hux wants to run his fingers through the thick, dark hair between his legs, take that cock into his mouth until his nose is buried there with that scent that is wholly and only Ben.

Instead, Hux swallows around his suddenly dry throat, propping the basket open and withdrawing the toy he’d bought months ago in hopes that one day they’d share the same kind of pleasure. It’s curved to fit in the basket, pliable enough to bend, but firm enough that they can both take something from it.

He lays the toy on the blanket, watching as Ben gazes down at it. It’s a rather garish shade of purple, a long shaft that terminates at both ends in the shapes of two, expertly molded cocks, raised veins spiraling around the length of it, tips flared. Hux's breath quickens as Ben regards it, then leaves him in a rush when Ben meets his eyes once more and resumes pushing his pants down to his knees.  

“When did you get this?” Ben asks quietly, once he’s naked. He still hasn’t touched it where it lays on the blanket between them, but he doesn’t seem put off by it.

“When you were in California.” Hux watches him to see if anything about that bothers him, but there are no outside indications. In the candlelight, Ben’s skin is pale gold, his hair falling in dark waves around his face. The humidity has made it frizzy, and Ben looks wild, like some primitive god. It makes Hux’s heart beat erratically, and he has to swallow past his impatient need.

Ben shifts back then, his feet flat on the floor and knees up, bracing himself with his palms. He regards Hux not with trepidation, but with desire, trust, and he slowly spreads his feet apart, lets his thighs fall open.

Hux is breathing through his mouth as he takes the lube from the basket and coats his fingers with it, taking up the open space between Ben’s legs as he reaches between them to circle his entrance. Hux’s eyes are on Ben’s face, and he pauses as Ben’s head lolls back, shoulders tensing.

“Still okay?” Hux asks.

“Yes,” Ben rasps, not lifting his head. His hips seem to jerk forward compulsively, and Hux takes that cue to slip his middle finger inside. The groan it pulls from Ben, primal and needy, makes Hux need to pause and breathe, to force back the building climax in his gut. When the tingling stops, he resumes slowly, carefully opening Ben up until he has three fingers buried inside.

“Are you okay to try this?” Hux asks, picking up the toy with his free hand.

Ben finally looks up at him, eyes wild and cheeks flushed. He nods.

Hux withdraws his fingers slowly, coating the toy with a generous amount of lube before pressing one end against Ben’s entrance. Ben is relaxed, more than he was this morning, and it slides in easily; Ben even seems eager for it, hips rocking down to meet Hux’s probing, cautious thrusts.

Mesmerized by the flush on Ben’s pale thighs, by the way he stretches over the silicone cock, Hux reaches behind himself to remove the plug in a sort of daze, thinking he doesn’t even need penetration to come. He could just watch this, watch Ben trust him this way, and that would be enough. But then Ben looks at him, dark lashes hooding his eyes, eyebrows drawn down like he’s impatient, and Hux exhales hard, fumbling for the lube so he can slick the other end of the toy.

“Lie down,” he says to Ben, petting the inside of his thigh, and Ben sinks backward heavily. Hux can’t help wrapping his fingers around Ben’s cock, pumping it once and watching him arch off the ground with a needy whine. Ben catches his wrist, and Hux gets the message that with any more of that, it’ll be over.

Hux lays back as well, balancing on one elbow as he reaches between his legs to guide the end of the dildo into himself. He adjusts his hips, grasping it by the center as he scoots forward, feeding it into himself until their legs are intertwined. Ben is still until Hux starts to move, his hips thrusting toward Ben and away again as Hux watches him, propped up on his elbows. Ben seems unsure at first, reacting only to the way that Hux’s movements shift the dildo inside him, but he starts to build his own rhythm soon enough.

The thunderstorm is still raging overhead, rain beating down against the room, and their distance from the house and from the world seems to peel all the reticence away from Ben. His pleasure is vocal, increasing as it earns similar sounds from Hux, who is caught up as much in the way Ben seems to be experiencing this as he is in his own physical sensations. They pick up pace until Ben is gripping Hux’s calf, trying to work himself closer, but the angles are too difficult.

Body flushed and hot, sheened with sweat, Hux rasps Ben’s name, tells him to get on his knees, and then he does the same until they are both filled again, pressed end to end. Hux’s thighs tremble as he pushes back against Ben, only able to hear the delicious slap of flesh against flesh because it’s hard and loud. Every time they come together, Hux can feel the sweaty flesh of their balls connect, sticky, pulling apart and coming back together as his cock bobs between his legs.

He knows when Ben is close just by the way he sounds, and he reaches back and finds Ben’s thigh, squeezing, telling him to touch himself. Ben must, because seconds later Hux feels him come, hard, body going tense and then slumping forward, the tilt making the shaft still buried inside Hux drive into his prostate. He comes with a scream that is swallowed by the storm.

Once he’s stopped shaking, Hux gingerly eases off, turning on his knees to slip the toy out of Ben, who winces. Hux lays it aside, crawls over Ben and plasters himself to his back. Ben’s hot, wet with sweat, smells like sex. Despite being spent, Hux’s cock is still half hard, and he rubs it over the cleft of Ben’s ass. Despite being spent, Ben lifts his hips.

Hux nibbles at Ben’s ear, catching hair in his mouth and not caring. “I love you,” he murmurs, struggling to get whole words out around his heaving chest.

Ben reaches up, finds Hux’s cheek with his palm, finds the back of his neck, his hair. Hux can feel his hand trembling, and while Ben doesn’t manage to reply vocally, he doesn’t need to.

 

Hux has no idea what time it is when they’ve finally settled alongside each other on the blankets, wrung out. They’d shared a dinner of grapes and refrigerated bacon, fat, juicy peaches that ended up turning into something sexual that the state of Georgia would be ashamed to associate with its official state fruit. Hux had spent himself in Ben’s lap, filled with him, and then taken Ben on his knees, and as they curled there together in the stifling heat, everything was itchy, sticky, aching, and perfect.

It had finally stopped raining; the sound of cicadas and other summer bugs drifted in between the plunks of runoff from the leaves overhead. Hux’s fingers were splayed over Ben’s bare chest, only just now rising and falling peacefully. The dogtags Hux never took off were lodged in his armpit, pulling uncomfortably at his neck, but he was too tired to move. Somehow, the towel that Hux had hung over the window had become dislodged on one side, and slivers of moonlight flicker in and out through the glass as scudding clouds left clear sky in intermittent patches.

As Ben rubbed Hux’s arm and his back gently with the tips of his nails, Hux drifts back to the first day he’d met Ben. That had been a hot day, too. A humid, Midwest summer that was burning the winter months away with a vengeance.

Hux had been out on the sidewalk when Phasma’s truck had pulled up alongside the curb. He’d only seen Ben’s face in profile at first, and the seconds had stretched out like Ben was in a trance, looking through the windshield toward some past or some future Hux couldn’t see. He’d finally turned his head and met Hux’s eyes, and that had been the end of everything that came before. Or the first moment of everything that would come after.

“Ben,” Hux whispers, still nestled against his shoulder.

“Mm?”

Hux spreads his hand over Ben’s chest, over his heart, and watches the moonlight burn across the black diamonds and silver circling his ring finger.

“I’m glad you asked me to marry you,” he whispers, remembering how he’d said this same thing to him back before this was all reality. Back when they were still unsure of their foundation. They’d found it, together, and realized that it had always been there, and that everything that came after that first time their eyes had met was just shoring up the structure. Hux smiles, thinking of the way he’d tried to tug this moment closer in his heart by making up his own fantasy, of Ben on his knees in Union Station, asking for his hand. “I’m glad you asked me both times,” he whispers. Because he wouldn’t trade a minute of the doubt and the stress and the embarrassment and the struggle for what came after.

Hux doesn’t see Ben smile, but he feels it. “Me either,” Ben says, like he's only heard the unspoken words in Hux's heart.

 


	5. Safe Harbor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **There has been a full series edit made to a minor character. This edit is not important to the story.

Sometime during the night, the rain starts again. It sneaks back in between the sound of water dripping from the branches spanning overhead and melds itself into the susurrus of tree leaves as they shed droplets in the wind. Even the intermittent thunder is a like a dull, rolling wave in the distance. 

Lightning flashes off and on, periodically seeping beneath Ben’s eyelids, each time being interpreted by his muzzy brain as something it is not: headlights passing by, the searchlight on the belly of a helicopter, a candle gusting on the hearth. 

Ben’s cheek is pressed into a pillow, his hair wet with sweat that forms a damp patch on the pillowcase. He’s floating in that slack limbo between sleep and awareness where his surroundings are hovering just at the edge of senses, but a sudden, violent boom wrenches him fully awake.

He doesn’t know where he is when he opens his eyes, his sight flooded with flickering white light and hearing screaming engines, the crack of gunfire, and the wail of sirens. His heart is hammering so hard that his temples pound, blood pressure skyrocketing, and dark spots burst in his vision as he sits up too fast, reaching for his weapon. 

His fingernails scrape over wood, finding nothing but empty space to his side, then graze something small and sticky, and Ben whips his head around to find a bowl of peach pits tipped on its side, contents strewn across the floor. Two empty tumblers. A wicker picnic basket. 

Everything warps around him, like he’s been inside a thick, viscous bubble that’s suddenly popped. 

He’s back in the treehouse in Georgia.

Hux is asleep beside him, brow pinched with a deep furrow above his nose, and his eyelids flutter when the room lights up again, seconds before thunder rattles the structure. Ben feels the vibrations shuddering up through the floor, his whole body like a tuning fork that is off-key, and he can’t stop hearing the screaming-engine, wind-rush sound of a dying Pavehawk streaking to earth. 

It hits him with a jolt of cold fear, and he rolls to his knees and crawls to the little window that faces east. Hux had pinned the towel over it again before falling asleep, and Ben tugs it away. The corner remains lodged over the old nail it’s clinging to, and tears off. Beyond the glass outside is nothing but darkness, deep and enclosing, like they are floating in an abyss leagues below the surface of the sea. 

Then lightning streaks across the underbelly of the massive, low-slung storm front, back-lighting the wispy, ragged edges that make it look as though the ground is trying to suck the clouds down into the earth. Rain is falling in a heavy sheet that looks silver, vanishing when the lightning fades, and then appearing again seconds later, blowing in a different direction. Ben can feel the wind changing directions, buffeting the northeast side of the treehouse now, and he turns his head just before the landscape is plunged into darkness again. 

He sees it only for a second, but that is all he needs. 

His palm digs hard into the wooden floor as he tries to turn faster than his lower body can react. Ignoring the sharp sting, he gropes in the inky dark until he finds Hux’s calf. He grabs it and pulls. 

“Hux. Wake up.” His voice is calm, a counterbalance to the raging weather. There is no room for panic. 

Hux flinches in his grip and murmurs something that is barely audible as Ben feels him roll over. Leaning closer and stretching his arm out further, Ben rubs Hux’s shoulder hard, trying to shake awareness into him without startling him.

“Hux,” he repeats, louder. His throat is threatening to close up with anxiety, but he swallows it down. “Come on, baby.” 

Thunder crashes overhead again and the glass in the window-panes rattles. There’s a resounding crack behind the treehouse, a creaking, tearing sound as a large limb is ripped from the trunk of a nearby tree. It’s close enough that spindly branches scrape across the roof and down the wall, like the claw of some great beast. 

This brings Hux fully awake, stirring under Ben’s hand. It takes him only a moment to realize something is wrong, and he sits up as sharply as Ben had only minutes before. 

Ben doesn’t give him time to ask questions. “We need to get to the house. Now.” 

Hux, to his credit, seems to understand rather quickly that there’s an urgency to the moment, and he snatches a t-shirt off the floor and drags it over his head at the same moment he comes to his feet. Ben’s already pushing the door of the treehouse open when Hux crowds close to him, hand on the waistband of Ben’s shorts. 

The moment the door is unlatched, the howling wind grabs it and tosses it back against the outer wall, the sound lost in another boom of thunder. Ben leans out, angling himself to look to the northeast again, trying to catch a glimpse of the funnel cloud in the gloom. Lightning flashes again, and it’s there, and Ben hears Hux curse.

“We have time,” Hux shouts over the wind. At that same moment, a siren starts to wail, ear-splitting and foreboding. 

Ben moves, flattening himself against the door frame with his arm out to keep the door from flying in again. 

“Go!” he tells Hux, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him when he hesitates. Hux has a better chance on the ground, and there’s no way Ben is leaving him in this tree. 

Knowing him too well to argue, Hux ducks through the door and maneuvers himself to the top of the ladder, scrabbling in the dark and chaos for the top rung before he swings his feet over and begins to vanish over the side. The lightning flashes again, and for a few seconds Ben can’t see him, thinking that there’s no way he could have climbed down that fast, that he must have fallen, but that he catches a glimpse of Hux’s pale, determined face as he looks up at Ben just before he edges out of view down the ladder. 

Ben skirts the edge of the platform, letting go of the door in the last moment. The wind is still blowing south, and so the door remains glued to the side of the treehouse, leaving Ben room to shimmy to the edge of the platform. He’s soaked, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, skin glistening with rain and sweat, and his bare feet slip on the algae-slick wooden rungs. 

“Come on, Ben,” Hux yells up at him, voice full of panic. He feels Hux’s hands on his calves from behind, then his thighs, and finally his hips, trying to keep him steady as though there would have been anything he could do if Ben had fallen. 

Ben lands in a sodden mass of dead leaves, stepping on something sharp that pierces his foot, but he doesn’t have time to care. Hux has his wrist and is already running, pulling him along, only letting go when Ben is matching his pace. 

Ahead of them, lights have come on in the house and the windows are warm, yellow beacons guiding them in from the storm. The mad dash across the yard seems to take forever, the wind buffeting them back in the direction of the trees and the lawn sodden. Thick grass and mud and spreading puddles suck at them, and Ben crowds close to Hux, hand between his shoulder blades, ready to stop at any moment and haul him up if he falls. 

They both make it around the side of the house in one piece, and Donnie is on the front porch, just taking the stairs down to the front drive. He catches sight of them, freezes for a moment with his hand shielding his eyes from the rain, the jolts back into motion, running toward them, the beam of a flashlight wavering ahead of him.

“Get back in the house!” Hux yells, pointing wildly behind them, but Donnie just keeps running. He nearly collides with them at the edge of the porch. 

“Basement,” he shouts, hovering only long enough to see Ben and Hux run past him. Ben looks back to make sure Donnie’s following immediately and catches another glimpse of the funnel cloud in a flash of light. It’s long and bent in the middle, the tail end tapering into a fine point, and the sky around it looks greenish-black. Ben has the sudden impression that it’s farther away now, but he doesn’t wait to examine his perception. 

They all take the stairs onto front porch in a tangle, hands steadying and guiding until they are all flat-footed again. Holly is in the doorway, wisps of her dark hair being tugged from a hasty knot to blow across her face. She rakes it out of her eyes with one hand, squinting, and frantically motions them inside with the other. 

It’s startles Ben how much the volume of the storm outside is dampened when the front door slams shut behind them. The siren wail rises above the cacophony, louder now, louder now than before, and rain still drives against the house, but other sounds are audible without the wind screaming in his ears. There’s a radio on somewhere, tinny voices talking rapidly, Hux is breathing hard next to him, and water is dripping from Ben’s fingers onto the hardwood floor. 

Holly leads the way, silent on socked feet. “They say it’s going to miss us by a couple of miles, at least,” she says, though her voice is still tight and Ben sees that her hand is trembling when she reaches out to twist the doorknob to the basement door.

“Where’s Ma?” Hux asks.

“She’s already down there,” Donnie assures them. “Go on.” 

Ben reaches out and touches Hux, feels a fierce sort of pride when he finds his fiancé steady under his hand. Hux glances back at him as he starts down the steep staircase into the basement, and gives Ben a small, tight smile. Only his eyes, which are round and bright, betray his fear.

Feet pad softly down the stairs, Ben and Hux tracking wet, muddy footprints behind Holly. The radio Ben had heard starts to come into clearer focus, and the door thunks shut behind them and clicks. Donnie follows them down and they all spill into the basement together.

Aislain is sitting at a folding card table that looks hastily erected, like she’d pulled it out and set it up while Donnie had been on his way out the front door to look for his brother and Ben. She’s perched at the edge of an old sliding rocker with a floral padded cushion tied to it, and her back is straight and chin up in a way that Ben realizes with a start is exactly the way Hux looks when he’s facing an adverse situation. The small emergency radio is on the table in front of her, as are several bottles of water, one tipped over on its side. 

Seeing her children return safe, Aislain deflates a bit, standing up and pulling Hux into a hug. She comes away with the front of her housecoat damp, fragments of a dead leaf stuck to it. 

Ben isn’t expecting it when Aislain reaches out and pulls him into an embrace as well, patting him on the back, and he’s suddenly terribly conscious of the fact that he’s wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. When she releases him and steps back, the dead leaf is stuck to Ben’s torso. Snorting with amusement, he picks it off and wads it up in his hand.

“What on Earth were you two doing spending the night in that old treehouse?” Aislain asks, looking at Hux. “You should know to check the weather by now.” 

Hux wraps his arms around himself, the wet t-shirt clinging to him and making him look somehow smaller than he actually is. Perhaps because it’s Ben’s shirt, inside out, and it hangs down to his thighs. 

“When I check the weather, I’m always looking for snow,” Hux explains. “I figured the storm would blow over.” The emergency broadcast signal starts pulsing from the radio just as Hux finishes speaking, and he flinches. 

Ben puts an arm around Hux’s shoulder and pulls him close, only now beginning to allow himself to process the anxiety he’d felt trying to get Hux to safety, and he takes a deep breath to keep from trembling. 

“I imagine a couple of inches of snow down here would be just as much of a disaster as a tornado,” Ben observes with a teasing smile, trying to keep the conversation steered in a direction that did not include what they were doing in the treehouse. 

This earns him a bark of laughter from Donnie. “Yeah, it snowed a foot or so here back in ‘03, and the schools were closed for three weeks. That was fun.” 

“I spent those three weeks playing video games,” Holly says, sifting through a laundry basket and coming up with a towel. She tosses it at Hux and sinks down in one of the chairs at the folding table. 

“Video games,” Donnie echoes. “This is why I love her.” He grabs a bottle of water off the table and hands it to Ben.

Ben accepts it gratefully, suddenly realizing how thirsty he is. He twists the flimsy plastic cap off and gulps half the bottle. “I didn’t miss snow when I was in the military,” he said. He’s about to say something about deserts when there’s a violent crack upstairs and the sound of shattering glass, and everyone in the room jumps.

Aislain starts toward the stairs as though it’s an instinct, and Hux grabs her arm. 

“Ma, whatever that was, we can fix it later.” 

Aislain looks back at them. “Did someone make sure the front door was sealed tight?” 

There’s a moment where everyone looks at one another, as though they are all trying to remember who was the last one in, but no one pipes up. They can hear the wind again, the howl reverberating down the stairwell, and Ben knows something upstairs is open to the elements now. 

“Turn the radio up,” he suggests, and Holly reaches out to twist the dial. A soft buzz and then static is all that emits from the speakers, which feels foreboding and apocalyptic for several long seconds, but then the voices fade back in. They all converge on the table, as though huddling around it together makes them safer. The weather report confirms the sighting of the tornado, that it looks as though it will miss the town proper, and rattles off into an impassioned history lesson about the last reports of such weather in the little southern town. 

“Well,” Aislain says on a long exhale as the report goes on, “I suppose all we can do is pray.” She has her fingers wrapped around the last bottle of water, and it crinkles under the pressure of her grip. Seeming to notice the sound, she pulls her hand away and wipes the moisture off on her thigh. 

“I’ll see if I can find a deck of cards,” Donnie says, like that seems a better option. Glancing at Hux, he raises an eyebrow and tilts his head toward the side of the basement inhabited by the household washing machine and dryer. “I think you can probably find some dry clothes over there.”

Ben glances at Hux at the same moment that Hux looks down at his own figure. Cheeks already pale from the chilly basement air on his wet skin, it’s easy to see the flush that creeps onto his face as he realizes that beneath the sodden t-shirt, all he’s wearing are the sheer, red briefs he’d surprised Ben with earlier that night. He hesitates for a moment, holding the towel in his hands awkwardly like he isn’t sure what to do with it, then he clutches it lengthwise to his chest and retreats to the other side of the basement. 

“I’m going to see if I can find something too,” Ben says, shuffling after him. Water from his drenched boxers makes chilly runnels down his legs as he walks, and he can’t shake the feeling that he needs to  _ do _ something. Hiding is not in Ben’s nature, and the urge to combat the threat facing them is like a knot of energy in his chest that needs release, but this thing is out of his control. 

“Hey,” he murmurs softly, so he doesn’t startle Hux, who is facing away and crouched down over a laundry basket picking through the dry clothes. Hux looks up at him with a stricken expression that reflects what Ben is feeling--helplessness. Crouching down beside him, Ben sets the half-empty bottle of water on the concrete floor and leans his back against the brick wall. Above them, thunder shakes the house, and Donnie tips a box over across the room, spilling CDs that clatter across the floor.

“It’s going to be okay,” Ben tells Hux, brushing Hux’s wet, dark auburn hair back from his forehead, exposing a crease of concern. 

“Okay?” Hux echoes, sounding much less sure. “Or are we going to be buried in the basement underneath my mother’s wrecked house on our wedding day?” 

“We’re not going to be buried under a wrecked house,” Ben assures him, speaking quietly enough that Aislain would not overhear. He looks down at the laundry basket and pulls a t-shirt out of the pile, spreading it out to assess the size. It’s too small, so he folds it in half and tosses it to the other side of the basket, then looks up at Hux again. “Even if, all that matters is that we’re alive, and we’re together.” His heart trips when he pictures what might have happened if they’d taken longer to get out of that treehouse, if the storm had not turned, if something had happened to Hux. Ben has no desire to live without him.

Hux seems to read the way Ben’s thoughts are likewise catastrophic, which is a propensity they both share when anxious, and instead of dwelling on the possibilities, Hux just rocks forward on the balls of his feet, puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder for balance and then kisses him. His lips are cold, but soft. 

“You’re right,” Hux says when he draws away, turning his attention back to the laundry. “It really can’t get any worse then wearing shorts from a porn website in front of your mother.” 

Ben can hear the dark humor in Hux’s voice, and is glad when Hux flashes him a smirk before tossing a t-shirt onto Ben’s knees. Hux had guessed well, and Ben tugs it over his head, raking his wet hair off his neck and wishing he had something to tie it back with. Hux, meanwhile, has slipped into the smaller shirt Ben discarded moments before, and then stands to shimmy into a pair of track pants that must belong to Donnie. 

Hux holds his hand out to Ben and pulls him up before molding against Ben’s chest in a tight embrace. Ben holds him, pressing their cheeks together and imprinting every sensation onto his consciousness: Hux’s cold face, the broken pine needle stuck in his hair, the warm breath against Ben’s neck and the steady beat of both their hearts. He can’t help thinking that there’s something in this moment that he wants to find a way to express in his wedding vows, about Hux being Ben’s calm in every storm. 

“I want to tell my mother about us,” Hux says quietly, pulling back and meeting Ben’s eyes as he slides his hands down Ben’s arms, twining their fingers together. 

Ben’s forehead creases. “About us?”

Hux nods. “The truth,” he says. “Before we get married, I just...want it out there. So we’re not starting out with a lie we have to maintain for the rest of our marriage.” 

The words  _ our marriage _ make Ben’s head feel light. It’s two words that represent an entire future he’s chosen for himself, two words that will define the rest of his life, and he doesn’t want to start that with a lie either. He’s surprised Hux hung on to it this long.

“I’m good with that,” Ben tells him with a small, encouraging smile, squeezing Hux’s hand. 

Hux kisses him again, very softly. “Thank you,” he says, though Ben doesn’t find it necessary. Hux flinches when something scrapes across the floor upstairs--Ben thinks it sounds like a piece of furniture that has blown over, and surmises that the crash they’d heard earlier was almost surely the front door being blown open. 

Ben squeezes Hux’s hand again and turns back toward the table and Hux’s family, tugging him along gently. He finds Aislain watching them, and the smile she offers is wistful. Ben wonders what she’s thinking--that she’s happy for her son, that she misses Brendol? He can’t imagine what it must be like for her, having lost someone she lived with for so long. Even the idea of losing Hux feels like a yawning chasm in Ben’s chest, one laid open already tonight by this storm. 

“I know I have some boxes packed up down here with Brendol’s old things,” Aislain tells them as they return. “I’m sure there’s a pair of pants that would fit you, Ben.” 

“That’s a little creepy, Ma,” Donnie says, dropping a deck of cards in a plastic box on the table and taking a seat next to Holly, who swats him on the shoulder, presumably for that comment. 

“I’m good,” Ben says. “There’s no sense in unpacking anything. We’ll be able to head back up soon, anyway.” He takes a seat on what looks like an old dining chair made of sturdy oak, and pulls Hux down to sit on his lap since there are only four chairs. 

“I...we...have something to tell you,” Hux says, redirecting the topic. He reaches out to take the plastic case of cards off the table and pops the lid off--fiddling with things when he’s nervous is a habit. 

Ben notices Aislain sit back in her chair, wringing her hands tightly in her lap. Hux notices too.

“It’s nothing bad, Ma. Just...kind of a crazy story. About me and Ben. It came out at Halloween when Donnie and Holly were up, but I asked them not to tell you.” 

“Okay,” Aislain says, though she keeps her hands folded in her lap and her eyes are intent on them both. Everyone is looking at them, and Ben leans his cheek against Hux’s shoulder, feeling the muscles shift as Hux begins to shuffle the cards. Holly reaches out and turns the dial on the radio until it’s barely audible.

“So um…” Hux starts. “I guess you all know how we met. The woman that’s coming to our wedding. Phasma? She introduced us. She thought we would like each other, and we did, but we were too dumb to realize it...and…” 

Hux trails off, and Ben can feel the way Hux’s heartbeat has sped up. Tilting his head, Ben speaks into Hux’s ear. “Just tell her, baby.”

Hux stiffens, then a sigh shudders through his frame. “We weren’t...actually engaged at Da’s wake,” he says, taking a deep breath afterward and holding it.

Everyone’s silent at first, and then Aislain leans forward, like she needs to close the distance between them in order to comprehend what her son has just said. Donnie is frowning down at the table, perhaps not terribly pleased at being implicated as complicit in this lie, but Holly just looks relieved.

“I don’t understand, sweetheart,” Aislain says. “What do you mean, you weren’t engaged? I thought…”

Hux lets out the breath he’d been holding, shuffling the cards again and not looking at his mother. “You remember how Da used to always hassle me about having grandkids? And how he was always so proud of…” Hux stops abruptly, and looks up at Donnie and Holly. “And how he always just wanted me to have a family too?” 

Ben believes that he sees Donnie recognize what Hux had been about to say, how he was about to bring up the rivalry for their father’s pride that had colored their childhoods, but Donnie says nothing. 

“He did,” Aislain agrees. “He just wanted you to be happy, and his family is what made  _ him _ happy.”

“Right,” Hux says, shrugging one shoulder. “I wanted that, too. But it always felt like he didn’t accept me like I am. Like I could just decide having a wife and kids was a better option than being gay, and I could flip a switch and pick a different direction with my life.” 

“He didn’t think that,” Donnie chimes in. “He did accept you. He just…” Donnie leans forward, folding his arms on the table, and Holly rubs the spot between Donnie’s shoulder blades. “Da was old school, Armie. He didn’t know how to have a conversation about his gay son’s love life, or progressive stuff like a queer couple adopting kids. Did you know he stood up against old Joe Ashton that ran for mayor a few years back because Ashton said he would support continuing to ban gay marriage?” 

Ben can’t help a smile, thinking how much this version of Brendol sounds like Leia. Hux pauses in shuffling the cards, facing Donnie in silence as he takes his brother’s words in.

Aislain smiles at this memory. “He said he’d run for mayor himself next term if Ashton won.” 

Hux laughs then, high and nervous. “Da as mayor. That would have been interesting.” 

“Or something,” Donnie agrees with a familial smile, and Ben feels Hux relax against him. “But...getting back to the whole ‘you weren’t engaged’ thing?” He seems to want this out in the open as much as Hux, now.

Hux sighs, settling back against Ben as though he needs to be close in order to tell the rest of the story. Ben links an arm around his waist.

“Anyway,” Hux goes on, “it was during one of these conversations about how I needed a wife and family that I told Da I did have a partner, that I was happy and didn’t need the kind of family he thought I should have. I had a picture of Ben on my phone, and I showed it to Da, and Ma was there too, and I told them that Ben was my fiancé.” 

“I was just the only guy he had a picture of,” Ben chimed in, squeezing Hux’s thigh playfully and smiling. 

Hux punches him on the shoulder softly, leaning closer. “It was wishful thinking. I’d had a crush on him for years,” he says, nuzzling Ben’s hair. Ben feels him smile just before Hux plants a kiss on his forehead. 

Aislain doesn’t seem to find the charm in the situation just yet, and is staring at her son with pinched brows. “You didn’t have to make up a story, Armie. And why did you keep on with it?” 

Hux is silent for a moment, slowly starting to shuffle the playing cards in his lap again. “You told me to bring my fiancé to Da’s wake. I didn’t want to cause drama by saying we’d broken up, and I didn’t want to be alone or for anyone to think I was the kind of guy whose fiancé wouldn’t come to his father’s funeral with him.”

“And then,” Ben adds, answering the rest of Aislain’s question, “while we were together here, pretending to be in love felt too real. Until we realized it was.” The two years he’d known Hux wasn’t technically  _ always _ , but it feels that way. “Then when we went home...we kept up with it because we wanted it to be true. Basically.” 

“Basically,” Hux repeats, smiling. 

Holly laughs, sounding more delighted than amused. “This is totally like a romantic comedy starring Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth.” 

“Which one of us is Bridget Jones?” Hux asks, and Ben can hear the hopeful relief in his voice.

“You are, sweetheart,” Ben tells him, pinching his side playfully. Hux squawks, and the deck of cards spills off his lap into the floor.

“So….” Aislain interrupts, forehead still furrowed. “You  _ are  _ engaged now. Right?” 

Ben laughs, the tension from facing the storm beginning to unspool. “Yes.” He finds Hux’s left hand with his, lifts it up and waves it like a marionette, calling attention to the engagement band. “This is real.” Not just the ring, but everything--how much he loves Hux, always has, and always will. 

“Well, good,” Donnie says, reaching down to pick up the cards that have fanned out beneath the table. “Because that would be really awkward Sunday evening if not.” 

Everyone shares a laugh at that--even Aislain, though Ben thinks she doesn’t look as though she’s quite finished processing what they’ve said. After a pause, she seems about to say something else, but then looks up toward the ceiling.

“I think the storm has passed,” she says. “I’ll go up and check.” 

Ben squirms under Hux as Aislain starts to stand. “I’ll go,” he says, and Hux slides off his lap.

“Me, too,” Hux says, refusing to let Ben leave him behind. Refusing to let him head toward potential danger alone, Ben thinks fondly. 

It indeed sounds as though the storm has abated, and behind them the radio comes back to life, tuning into a weather report that sounds much less frantic. Ben unlatches the door at the top of the stairs, cracking it open a bit and listening; he can still hear the rain, but it sounds like little more than a lazy summer shower. Opening it all the way then, he pads softly out, through the kitchen with Hux hovering close behind. 

Even before reaching the front room, Ben can tell the front door is open. The sound of rain falling is clearer, and he can distinguish different tones of water on leaves, on wood, the metallic clink of gutters. 

“Damn,” Hux says when they both pause to survey the damage. The door is pressed against the wall, not moving, and the glass window in the frame looks like a maw of jagged teeth. Most of the glass is scattered across the foyer.

“Could be worse,” Ben says, peering out through the door into the dark. 

“Yeah,” Hux agrees. 

“Well, would you look at that,” Aislain says from behind them, and Hux jumps. 

Ben glances around and finds everyone has come up from the basement without waiting for Ben’s report, and they are all huddling in a knot looking at the broken window. 

“I’ll get a broom,” Hux says. 

  
  


It turns out that five people can make a fairly short and thorough business of cleaning up glass, and after corralling the cats who come out of hiding conveniently in the midst of that process, all the broken shards are piled in a cardboard box and the floor is swept several times before Aislain runs a sponge mop over it to pick up any sharp grains. More cardboard is securely taped to the door to cover the hole, and Donnie announces he’ll head over to the hardware store the next day to see about fixing it. 

“I’ll go with you,” Ben tells Hux’s brother, who takes the roll of duct tape out of Ben’s hand again and peels some off. 

“No, you won’t,” Donnie says, handing the roll back. “It’s your wedding weekend. No household repairs allowed.” 

“We can handle it just fine,” Aislain says, patting Ben on the back. “You two should go clean up and get to bed.” 

“But Ma,” Hux starts, and is interrupted by Aislain holding her index finger up.

“If you really want to help, you can be in charge of taste-testing tomorrow while I bake.” 

Hux sucks in his bottom lip, eyes round. “I can definitely do that.” 

His mother smiles, wrapping an arm around Hux’s waist and squeezing him with a hug while holding the mop with her other hand. “Okay. Get upstairs now. It’s already three A.M.” She swaps her arm to Ben and gives him a squeeze as well. 

“Night, Ma,” Ben says.

Ben follows Hux up the stairs after saying goodnight to Donnie and Holly, and Ben can’t help but notice that Hux’s steps are dragging, like his feet weigh twice as much as normal. Ben feels it too, a tiredness that seeps in, bone deep, now that the danger has passed. 

Hux almost trips on the top step when he catches his toes on it, but grabs the rail for balance. He waits for Ben on the landing. 

“I think I might need to sleep until Sunday,” Hux tells him as Ben herds him into their bedroom with a hand on the small of his back.

“We have to get up early enough to go see if the storm blew everything out of that treehouse and all over the yard, before your mom finds that giant, purple cock in her flowerbed” Ben says.

Hux comes to a very abrupt halt just inside the door and starts to turn around, but Ben moves both hands to Hux’s hips and guides him further into the room, laughing.

“I’m going out there right now,” Hux says, trying to worm out of his grasp, but Ben locks Hux against his chest with an arm around his waist.

“No, you’re not,” Ben tells him, nuzzling the soft spot beneath his ear. “We need a shower and we need sleep.”

“I won’t be able to sleep after you planted that vision in my head,” Hux grouses, but when he pulls away he’s angling for the bathroom door, so Ben lets him go. 

“The whole ‘telling your mom the truth’ thing went pretty well,” Ben says, shutting their bedroom door and trailing behind Hux, shucking the borrowed t-shirt. 

Hux peels the shower curtain aside and turns the tap on, testing the water temperature with his fingers. “I think so. I don’t think Ma has decided whether to be upset about it yet. If she is, she probably won’t tell me.” Hux determines the water to be warm enough and pulls the diverter knob on the faucet before standing up and pulling the shower curtain closed again. “Do you think your family will be upset with you?” he asks, looking at Ben with concern.

“No,” Ben says. “I think they’re just glad to have me back. And besides, we were for-real engaged when you met them.” 

Hux frowns, tugs off his shirt, then raises an eyebrow at Ben. “Yeah, but we weren’t for like, seven minutes after you told your mom.” 

Ben rolls his eyes, hooking thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and pushing them over his hips. As tired as they both are, Ben doesn’t miss the way Hux’s eyes are drawn down to his flaccid cock, and Ben stalks toward him so he can palm Hux’s ass through his sheer, red shorts. 

“You have any other surprises like this?” he asks, dipping a finger beneath the hem where it molds high on Hux’s upper thigh, pulling gently.

Hux gives him a coy smile. “Possibly.” 

Ben kisses him, savoring the way Hux tastes and the way that lithe body fits against Ben’s own. He thinks about the way they hadn’t even discussed showering together, how they’d just gravitated in here with one another, like a half hour of separation by nothing more than a curtain was too much. 

Despite the flirtatious teasing, the shower they take is as chaste as it can be with two naked bodies pressed against one another in the smallish space. Fingers and hands move across one another for no other purpose than to scrub away sweat and debris dust. Hux finds a rather nasty scrape on the bottom of Ben’s foot, and there’s a splinter in the webbing of Hux’s thumb and forefinger, but they tend to one another with a sort of quiet gratitude that they’re both still here and that they have each other. 

When Ben slides into the bed next to Hux and pulls him close, Hux is fully clothed in pajama pants and a t-shirt, where he always sleeps naked at home.

“You dressed just in case there’s another tornado?” Ben murmurs in his ear. 

Hux shifts back, melding more securely against Ben. “My family has seen all of me they need to see,” he says, muffled by the pillow. 

Ben smiles. “How could anyone ever see enough of you, baby?” he asks, slipping his hand beneath the hem of Hux’s shirt, running his fingertips through the trail of soft hair beneath Hux’s navel. 

Hux squirms, elbowing Ben. “I never thought I’d say this, but knock it off.” 

Ben laughs and draws his hand out from beneath Hux’s shirt, knowing that neither of them has the stamina for anything more than sleep. Just being close is enough. 

“I love you,” he whispers in Hux’s ear, and Hux turns around in Ben’s arms and twines around him. Ben wants to hang on to this moment, to exist in their pocket of stillness and safety. He’d spent so many years wandering in his own storm, looking for peace, and now he’s found his safe harbor and will carry it with him for the rest of his life. 

He lies awake for a long time, waiting for the rain to stop, for the moonlight to peek through the clouds. He listens to Hux’s slow, steady breathing until the world outside is calm again, until he’s had time to appreciate the fact that Hux is safe, and his. Then Ben, too, drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **This story is turning out to be longer than I expected. I really want to do a lot with Ben reconnecting with his family, which I left out of The Roof of the Night. I will try my best not to be super slow with the updates. 
> 
> I really thank everyone that has stuck around all this time! I hope the end will be worth the wait!
> 
> Your comments will always be very appreciated!


	6. Home

Saturday

 

The house is eerily quiet the next morning, though perhaps not any quieter than it would have been on any other day. It just _seems_ quiet, with nothing but clear, cloudless blue skies beyond the window and the soft whir of the ceiling fan. The light outside tells Ben it’s before noon, but not by much, which would mean he’d had a good seven hours of sleep, but he feels hungover and exhausted. His eyelashes are sticky, crusted at the corners, and he feels like he could drink a gallon of water if only he had the energy to get out of bed and get it. It’s effort enough to turn his head to the side.

Hux had rolled away in the night, and is laying on his left side with one arm hanging over the edge of the bed. He’ll be awake soon, Ben knows, because that position always makes his hand fall asleep.

The desire to hydrate is stronger than the desire to convalesce, and so Ben levers himself up and peels the slightly damp sheets off. The moment his feet graze the floor, he’s struck with a coughing fit that makes his chest feel too tight at the sternum and the skin itch where it stretches over his ribs. His left ear pops, the sound of his wet cough going fuzzy on that side, like static.

He feels the bed dip behind him, the springs inside the mattress moving, and then Hux’s knuckles are on his back.

“You okay?” The question is sleepy, punctuated by a yawn, and Ben almost smiles at the way Hux has managed to skip the muddy daze he always seems to wake up in, going immediately from asleep to concerned.

Ben wipes his palm on his pajama pants and then scratches the flushed skin below his neck. “Just need some water,” he tells Hux, finally pushing himself to his feet and shuffling zombie-like to the bathroom.

There’s a glass on the counter, and Ben fills it under the tap and drinks it down three times before he feels like he’s not dangerously dehydrated.. He glances at himself in the mirror after he sets it down, and sees that his skin is sallow and eyes red rimmed.

“Great,” he mutters. He hasn’t been sick in years, so why now, the day before his wedding?

Hux appears in the doorway just as Ben tears a strip of toilet paper off the roll to blow his nose, and Ben can tell from Hux’s severe look that he realizes something is amiss.

“Just allergies?” Hux asks, eyebrows pinched, “or are you getting sick?”

Ben shakes his head, blinking at Hux over the wad of tissue. His eyes are blurry. “Just allergies, I’m sure,” he says, telling himself that it’s positive thinking instead of a lie, but the last thing he wants to do is worry Hux.

Hux, nevertheless, frowns at him in a manner that suggests he’s not buying it, and he bends down to open the cabinet door beneath the sink where he’s squirreled away their toiletries bag. Ben blows his nose again while watching Hux sift through the bag to find a particular ziplock, out of which he pulls a box of allergy tabs. The ziplock is full of various kinds of medicine, something for every malady, reminding Ben of the long lists that had gone into packing.

Hux breaks the seal on the bottle and taps one tiny, white pill into his palm, then sets it on the counter and pours Ben another glass of water.

“You should drink some orange juice, too,” he says.

Ben tosses the toilet paper in the trash basket and takes the pill, giving Hux the most light-hearted smile he can muster. “Yes, mother.”

Both of Hux’s eyebrows go up and he purses his lips; his Serious Mode is activated, and it has a tendency to sap his sense of humor. Ben swallows the pill dutifully.

He feels marginally better once he begins moving around, and by the time he’s dressed and his teeth are brushed, Ben thinks it might indeed have just been allergies stirred up by the storm and by sleeping outside.

He straightens up the room while Hux finishes his morning routine, and finds his phone on the floor behind the bedside table. He wonders how it got there until he fishes it out and looks at the screen. It’s on vibrate, and there are notifications of missed calls, emails, voicemails, Skype messages, and texts. A stab of worry lances through him until he opens his text client and sees the last message—it’s from his mother, and it says “I’m on my way there right now.” It was sent thirty minutes prior.

A quick perusal of the messages he’d received leave him little doubt that his mother had been watching the weather and known of the storm that had passed through last night, and that Ben not answering his phone had left her in a state of panic. He sits down on the bed and plugs his phone in, flicking through the various messages and trying to decide if he should call, text, or just wait the half hour it would probably take for her to get here.

“Everything okay?” Hux asks, hovering in the bathroom door while he combs his hair.

Ben glances at him. “Yeah. My mom’s on her way.”

“I thought they weren’t coming in until tomorrow?”

Ben turns the phone around and shows Hux the score of notifications. “She apparently assumes we didn’t make it through that storm last night because I didn’t answer my phone.”

That triggers a thought for Hux. “Speaking of, have you seen my phone?”

“It’s in the treehouse,” Ben tells him, “which we need to go deal with ASAP.”

“Oh my god,” Hux groans, abandoning any semblance of fixing his hair and rushing out of the bathroom to put on his shoes.

Ben does the same, and they manage to be down the stairs in under three minutes, making it to the door without attracting attention. The cardboard is still taped to the broken window pane, and when Ben opens the door the first thing he notices is that both vehicles—Donnie’s car and Aislain’s truck—are missing. Apparently, Hux’s family had decided to run their errands while letting Ben and Hux get their beauty sleep.

The second thing he notices is the utter destruction outside.

The yard is littered with green leaves ripped from the towering trees that border the property, twigs and sticks of every shape and size, a shattered limb more than six feet long with jagged branches jutting out toward the sky. One smaller tree has been torn entirely from the ground, its roots still embedded in dirt and straggling into empty space.

“Jesus,” Hux says with a sharp breath. Ben feels his fingers brush his wrist, then Hux’s forefinger links through his. Perhaps they are sharing the same thought—that they are lucky to have been on the edge of this storm.

“Yeah,” Ben agrees. He takes a few steps out onto the porch, towing Hux along by the finger. There’s a gutter that’s been torn from the edge of the house, hanging at an angle that is trickling water into the flowerbed below. The flowers themselves have been blown flat, still too moisture-sodden and abused to stand up. The driveway is pocked with puddles of water, the gravel pushed downhill in places by impromptu streams that had formed in the night but had now vanished.

Reaching the front steps, Ben begins to take them down when he catches a glimpse of a car turning into the drive that isn’t Donnie’s or Aislain’s. He squints, shading his eyes against the sun and wondering what he’s done with his sunglasses.

“Is that your parents already?” Hux asks, voice going up a notch at the end.

The vehicle is close enough now that Ben can make out Han behind the wheel and Leia in the passenger seat. His mother is leaning forward, one hand on the dashboard while she peers out through the windshield. Ben sees her spot him, because she points at him and looks at Han, saying something that Ben assumes he is likely to hear repeated in just a few moments.

“Yep,” he tells Hux. “Apparently, she’s had enough of me not answering my phone.”

“Oh good,” Hux says, suddenly backing away from Ben toward the front door. “You stall them. I’m going out the back to...you know. Decontaminate the treehouse.”

Ben watches him vanish through the screen door, which thwacks shut behind him. That, at least, had been safely latched the night before and remained intact. He turns his attention back to the driveway and watches as Han pulls the silver Toyota to a stop.

The passenger door opens before Han even turns the engine off, and his mother hops out, marching across the driveway in platform sandals that only make her marginally taller. She plucks off her sunglasses when she nears the steps, and Ben descends the last two in time to meet her.

“You are going to be the death of me, Benjamin Solo,” she says breathlessly, reaching up to put both hands on his cheeks, patting one side of his face as though she’s trying to assure herself that he’s real. Ben leans down so she can plant a kiss on his forehead, right between his eyebrows. That had always been what she did when he was a child, when he’d needed comfort for anything, from a skinned knee to a fit of anger, but now that comfort is for her.

“I’m okay, Mom,” Ben murmurs, finding his voice thick. He still hasn’t come to terms with the toll his long absence had taken on his family—especially Leia. His eyes flick over her head to see his dad stepping out of the car, much more sedately. Han flashes him a smile and Ben can’t help returning it as Han strolls across the few feet separating them.

“Glad you’re alright, kiddo,” Han says, throwing an arm around Ben’s neck and tugging him into a hug, patting his back. “Your mother was ready to drive down here last night and dig you out of the rubble.”

Ben snorts with laughter as Leia puts her hands on her hips. “I would have, too,” she says. “With my bare hands if necessary.” She pushes Ben’s hair away from his forehead. “You’re flushed,” she tells him. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine,” Ben says, though he feels tired, and the allergy medicine has made his head spin. “Did you leave everyone else at the hotel?”

Leia nods. “They’ll head this way in the morning. Rey sure is excited to see you.”

Ben smiles, thinking of the box he has stored in his closet at home with all Rey’s letters that he’d saved, the drawings she’d made as a kid and the school pictures she had sent every year. Seeing her as a twenty year old woman when he’d taken Hux to meet his family had been surreal.

“Everything seems so quiet,” Ben says. “It’s hard to believe we have a wedding planned tomorrow.”

Leia takes a deep breath, lets it out through her nose. She has a watery look in her eyes for a few seconds before she makes a point to look at the front door. Hux has left it open except for the screen, and Ben can feel the barest hint of air-conditioned air escaping into the Georgian summer.

“Speaking of weddings,” Leia says brightly, “where is that second son of mine?”

Ben hides a smile by covering his mouth and coughing—he intends to fake the cough, but it becomes real and it takes him a moment to recover. Leia puts a hand on his back and makes small circles between his shoulder blades until he gets his voice again.

“He’s straightening a few things up quickly. We um...weren’t expecting you just now.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well are we going to be in the way?”

The screen door creaks and Hux appears on the porch again, looking flushed from the heat. He steps quickly toward the edge of the porch and hops down the stairs.

“Hi,” he says breathlessly. “Sorry. And of course you aren’t going to be in the way.”

Hux leans down to be pulled into a hug by Ben’s mother, flicking Ben a wide-eyed look over Leia’s head. Ben can only imagine what Hux has done with the stuff in the treehouse that quickly. Buried it, maybe.

Han is standing several feet away from Leia, hands in his pockets until Hux holds his own hand out for a firm shake. Ben notices that his father seems almost grateful, like he’s not sure if he should really be there. It had been like that during the visit to New York too; the women in the family had welcomed Ben back with an exuberance that was almost smothering, while Han had hovered around the periphery giving Ben the time to adjust that he needed. The trip hadn’t been long enough, however, and Ben hadn’t managed to get a moment alone with his father. Now Ben wonders if Han thinks that was intentional.

“We should get out of the sun,” Hux says, gesturing over his shoulder toward the house.

Leia beams at him with the particular look Ben has noticed she seems to have reserved just for Hux; it’s like a mix of relief and gratitude, and Ben suspects that his mother believes in some part that Hux is responsible for returning her son to her. And in a way, he is.

Before Hux can usher everyone inside, Aislain’s pickup truck appears at the end of the drive. Leia follows Hux’s gaze, squinting toward the road, and then breaking into a smile when she realizes who it is.

Leia is already approaching the truck when Aislain pulls to a stop behind the Toyota, and Ben smiles at the delighted expression on both womens’ faces, like they were long-lost friends reunited after years apart. While they embrace, speaking quietly but with bright tones, Hux shuffles closer to Ben and leans against him with an arm around his waist.

“What do you want to bet they’ll be spending half the day standing right there talking?” Han asks.

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Hux says. “I’ve heard a retelling of every phone and Skype conversation at least twice, and I’m pretty sure at this point Leia knows more about me than Ben does.” Hux squeezes Ben, emphasizing what Ben’s already aware of: no one knows Hux better than him.

This makes Han laugh, a sound that Ben had almost forgotten. His father meets his gaze just as Ben is thinking about how they used to watch tasteless comedies that Leia hated, and had a whole repertoires of overused quotes they could crack up over together no matter how old they got. Those little familiarities, the things that are particular to just you and another person, are what makes someone feel like family to Ben. He realizes suddenly that he has more of those little threads connecting him to Hux than he does to his father.

When their eyes meet, Han’s smile turns a bit wistful, like he’s thinking the same thing, but he just reaches out and sets a hand on Ben’s back; Han seems to think twice about the simple gesture of affection, however, because after a brief hesitation, the touch turns into an awkward pat. Then, in true Han Solo character, his smile ticks up at one corner and he points a finger at Ben.

“You gotta stop living life on the edge, though, kid. No more wars, no more tornadoes. No fast cars. I’d like to see your mother make it to be an old woman.”

“I’m already an old woman, Han Solo, and I blame that completely on you,” Leia says, in earshot now as she crosses back to them, gravel crunching beneath her feet and Aislain at her side.

Ben feels Hux stiffen at his side, and it’s at that moment that Ben notices the expression on Aislain’s face. Hux’s mother is extraordinarily gifted at putting on a happy front, but there’s deep crease between her eyebrows and her lips are pursed and pale.

“What’s wrong, Ma?” Hux asks.

Aislain hovers behind Leia, wringing one hand around her wrist. Her wedding ring, which Hux says she’ll probably never take off, glints in the sun. Leia puts a hand on Aislain’s shoulder, which Ben takes as a bad sign.

“I went down to the reception venue to start setting up the table arrangements,” Aislain begins, taking a deep breath. “And they have it cordoned off. The door. The whole place is under a foot of water from the storm last night.”

No one says anything for a moment, everyone looking at Aislain as though waiting for the punch line of the joke.

Then Ben is jostled sideways as he feels Hux pull abruptly away, and by the time he turns his head, Hux is pounding up the porch stairs. Aislain calls after him, but Ben knows it’s a lost cause, and Hux disappears into the house and lets the screen door slam behind him without saying a word.

Ben’s stomach sinks. "Did you hear about the photographer?" he asks Leia, thinking Aislain might have filled her in. 

Leia frowns, nodding. "And I'd like to burn their business to the ground." 

Ben snorts. "So would Hux. But they aren't worth it. I just wish everything was perfect for him."

He himself would have married Hux anywhere, in a tiny ceremony in their back yard or in a courthouse, but this wedding, Ben believes, is Hux’s way of showing everyone in his little, backward town that the boy who didn’t have any friends as a child is now a successful man with someone that loves him. Hux had said something like that when he’d said his goodbyes at Brendol’s gravesite. And maybe having this wedding in Tully is a way to cherish the memory of his father, who lived and died here and who, in the end, brought Hux and Ben together.

Ben feels Leia’s hand on the small of his back and he glances at her, finding her determined rather than sympathetic and stricken like Aislain’s is behind her.

“We will figure this out, honey,” she says. “I’ll get on the phone and get everyone down here and we will make this work.”

She doesn’t bother offering any false hope—a venue flooded with storm-water less than two days before a wedding was a lost cause, and Ben knew that the minute Aislain told them. Hux clearly did as well. Ben doesn’t know what his mother means by ‘we will make this work,’ or how they possibly can, but he knows that this, on top of everything else that’s happened this week, will have crushed Hux.

“I’m going to go talk to him,” Ben says, exhaling a deep sigh that leaves his chest feeling tight. He knows he could let this roll off his back, to make different, last minute plans without feeling wronged by fate, but Hux can’t, and that’s the part that hurts.

“Okay,” Leia says. “You tell him I’ll take care of this,” she glances at Han, and back at Aislain, nodding. “We all will.”

Aislain looks pensive and confused, which tells Ben she doesn’t know his mother quite as well as Hux thinks. If there’s a way in hell to fix this mess, Leia will find it.

Ben nods, even though he’s not sure what he’s agreeing to, and then he walks heavily up the stairs, feeling weighed down and trying to rehearse the best way to offer sympathy without sounding as positive as his mother. Ben knows from experience that Hux won’t respond to that, and it’s a good thing he’d fled the scene before Leia’s well-intentioned, cryptic reassurances.

Ben calls Hux’s name after he shuts the door, getting the feeling that Aislain and his parents will give them privacy in the house for a while. Even though Ben hates that there’s any need to comfort Hux—that he’s upset at all—for some reason it feels good to be the person entrusted to that. To be _Hux’s_ person.

Ben goes upstairs and makes it about half-way up before he starts to feel light-headed. He pauses briefly and puts the back of his hand on his forehead just like his mother had always done. He’s definitely running hot, which is pretty much perfect, all things considered. He starts up the stairs again, blinking away the fuzzy edges in his vision, and vows not to say anything to Hux about it.

 

* * *

 

 

Hux had not had the mental acuity to feel badly for his response to the news about their reception venue until well after he’d made it upstairs. His mother’s announcement had flipped a switch in his head that was like turning the channel on a television from a high definition picture to static. Everything just became a blank wall of rejection, and only now, sitting on the bed listening to the sound of Ben’s heavy footsteps up the stairs, does reality start to sink in. He feels tears prick his eyes, a heavy ache in his chest that makes him want to scream, but he holds it in and stares at the open door, waiting for Ben.

When Ben appears, Hux exhales shakily and the trembling starts in his hands. The tips of his fingers start to feel tingly and numb, and he can feel his pulse in his temples. It’s the beginning of a panic attack, a bad one, and he can’t even manage to say anything to Ben as Ben shuts the door quietly behind him. Instead, Hux digs his fingernails into his knees, painful even through the fabric of his bluejeans.

Ben sees him do it and crosses the room, keeping Hux’s eyes riveted on his. Without saying anything at first, Ben just sinks down onto the bed beside him, the mattress dipping and making Hux sway naturally toward him.

Ben gives him a minute, then puts his hand on Hux’s back, just leaving it there. His palm it warm, heavy, wide, and the contact allows Hux to take the first deep breath he’s taken since ascending the stairs. When Ben hears it, he judges that Hux is okay with being touched and slides his arm around him.

It’s exactly what Hux needs, but the tension still has his muscles stiff and unyielding, and he can’t quite uncurl his fingers.

Ben turns his head to press a kiss into Hux’s hair. “Breathe, baby,” he says, the words humid against his scalp, and Hux breathes—a long, slow exhalation that hitches toward the end.

“Maybe we should just...postpone this,” Hux says, then regrets it immediately. He looks at Ben, mouth open to form an apology, but Ben speaks first, leaning in to nuzzle the side of Hux’s nose the way he always does when he’s trying to calm him.

“I want to marry you, though,” he whispers. It’s just shy of plaintive, like he knows he doesn’t have a better argument. But then, he doesn’t really need one. In the end, that’s all Hux wants, too.

Hux turns his hand over, resting the back on his knee and spreading his fingers wide. Ben shifts against him so he can fit their hands together.

“Why is everything going wrong?” Hux asks. He almost says ‘is the universe trying to tell us something?’, but realizes how that will sound: like he doubts that they should be together, and Hux knows better.

He feels Ben shrug. “Because life is messy,” he answers.

Hux waits for him to say more, but he doesn’t, and it makes Hux think of how Ben has come to see that as a truth. Things like absent photographers and flooded reception venues seem small compared to the intangible thing they’ve built with each other.

“I guess it doesn’t matter,” Hux says, trying the thought out loud.

“It does matter,” Ben says. “It’s important to you, and you don’t need to pretend it isn’t. Trust me, bottling stuff up just makes you feel worse.”

Hux looks at where their hands are linked against his knee and allows himself the disappointment, even if he does feel a little guilty for it, like he’s being petty.

“You aren’t disappointed?” he asks very quietly.

Ben is silent for a moment, and Hux guesses he’s trying to find a way to tell the truth without hurting his feelings.

“I am,” he says finally. “Because it upsets you.”

Hux feels a little cold hearing it out loud, but he can’t fault Ben for it. Every bit of this had been Hux’s idea, and Ben had gone along with it to make him happy. Truthfully, he thinks having a big wedding that forces Ben to center stage with his family around him makes him uncomfortable, which should never have been how this day went.

“I’m sorry,” Hux says, feeling tears prick his eyes. He scoots down on the mattress so he can look Ben in the face. “Let’s just...elope. Let’s do the family thing for, I don’t know, a pre-elopement dinner or something and go to the courthouse and get the papers. We can still go on our honeymoon, we’ll still be married.” Hux has to take a deep breath after getting the words out and tries to school his face into something encouraging.

Ben regards him silently, and Hux thinks he’s considering it, and is sure of it when he smiles his sweet, lopsided smile.

“No,” Ben says. The word has a tone of finality, and when Hux tests it by opening his mouth to make another argument, he sees Ben’s eyebrows twitch down. This is the same look Hux had gotten when he’d once suggested that Hux take over the mortgage payments on their house to make up for the massive amount of Ben’s trust fund that had gone into the down-payment.

Hux closes his mouth and reflexively squeezes Ben’s hand; it’s a ‘thank you,’ and a sure tell that Hux had been hoping Ben would say no, even if Hux hadn’t been sure of that himself.

“What are we going to do about the reception, though?” Hux asks. “And the photographer?”

Ben stands up, still holding onto Hux’s hand and pulling Hux up with him. “Come downstairs,” he says. “My mother says she has an idea.”

Hux frowns. “What idea?”

Ben is already moving toward the door, towing Hux along. “I don’t know,” he says, opening it and going through. “But she wants to take care of things for me.” He pauses and looks back at Hux. “And this time I’m going to let her.”

 

 

The rest of the day is a whirlwind, and Hux is caught up in it completely. He doesn’t have time to feel sorry for himself, because by the time they get downstairs, Ben’s mother has a notepad on a clipboard with instructions for everyone, and the happy couple is not excluded.

Mid-afternoon sees the driveway packed with cars. Leia has called in Ben’s cousin Rey and her boyfriend Finn a day early, and Phasma followed just behind, looking amused by the fact that she’d let Mitaka drive.

Donnie and Holly take over Aislain’s truck and ferry the tables and chairs over from the reception hall while Han, Finn, and Phasma are assigned to cleaning the scattered branches and twigs off the lawn.

Only Ben is exempt from the heavy lifting, and it takes both Leia and Hux to keep him in the house and out of the sun. At some point, Aislain appropriates him to help her bake cakes, of which there really are three. As the afternoon progresses and Hux drifts in and out of the house for extension cords and water from the kitchen tap, he sees that one of these cakes is slowly taking the form of an armadillo.

Hux is staring up at the deep blue sky, hands on his hips, when he hears another car pull into the driveway. The purr of the engine is distant, because there’s not much room left for cars to pull close to the house. Hux glances down the drive curiously, but he’s distracted by refreshing the weather application on his phone. It still promises sun and clear skies, but Hux is still anxious as the rows of chairs are starting to take shape in the shadow of the huge oak in the front yard.

“What if it rains tonight?” Hux worries aloud as Donnie unfolds another of the wooden chairs.

“It’s not going to rain,” Holly tells him, squeezing his arm as she passes, using her knee to open another chair.

Hux sighs, looks at the sky again, and shoves his phone in his pocket where it will probably stay for ten minutes at the most. He shifts one of the chairs to fit into the semi-circle that faces the tree. The chairs are a distressed wood, a beautiful amalgam of whites, browns and blues and nicely stained—Hux loves them, and has to admit they look good out here. The tables match, but much discussion about heat and the inevitability of summer insects has led the tables to accumulate on the front porch, where they’ll be moved in once the furniture in the huge family room is moved out.

Donnie passes him again, heading back to the truck. He reaches out and ruffles Hux’s hair, and Hux turns to give him an exasperated look only to come face to face with Ben’s ex-boyfriend.

Hux just stares for a few seconds, reminding himself that he knew Poe would be here, but it takes a moment not to see him the way he’d looked bundled against the cold that day in the driveway of Ben and Hux’s house, bearing dark news. It makes Hux’s skin prickle defensively and his pulse jump before he is disarmed by Poe’s wide smile.

“Hux,” Poe says brightly, like they’re old friends. “I wanted to introduce you to my wife, Katie.” Poe playfully nudges the woman at his side with his elbow.

Hux looks at her and smiles. “Hello,” he says politely.

“Hey,” she says. The slight breeze tugs a few strands of her dark hair out of her ponytail and she pushes it back out of her face.

She looks a little anxious, and Hux feels bad for bristling moments before. He’s summoning his inner Southern host when Katie, still holding her hair back, waves her hand back toward the car they’d arrived in.

“So, um, Ben said your photographer is a dick,” she says. “I brought my camera to take shots on our drive down, so if you want…” She trails off, giving Hux an expectant look, and then adds like an afterthought: “I take professional pictures as a side job.”

Hux brightens instantly. “Really?” Another version of Hux would have asked for a portfolio, but the only thing he cares about at the moment are the words _professional_ and _camera_. “I’ll pay you anything you ask,” he adds.

Katie huffs a small laugh and shakes her head at the same time Poe says “Maybe we’ll worry about that later, buddy.” He gives Hux a hefty, good-natured swat on the shoulder. “Could use something to drink, though! I hear the sweet tea is good down here.”

Hux gives them both a hesitant smile, waiting for the part where they evaporate into thin air because they’re actually a figment of his imagination, but when the moment stretches out just a bit too long and Poe raises an eyebrow at him, Hux decides to go with it.

“Yeah, the sweet tea isn’t bad,” he says, gesturing across the lawn. “I’ll show you up to the house.”

  


The new arrival is seized as the perfect moment for a lunch break, and Hux’s mother sets the baking safely aside to make room for sandwich fixings while introductions are made all around. It’s different, seeing Poe in his mother’s kitchen, squeezing Ben into a tight hug. It makes Hux think of the winter again, and how Poe had stood in the kitchen at their house in Chicago talking about old times, and how Ben had come down the stairs like a dark cloud rolling over the room. That day had been like a sort of purgatory, and it feels to Hux like everything had been uphill since. In the good way, where uphill gives you the best view of where you’ve been and the things you’ve overcome, and is closer to the sun.

Hux hovers in the doorway of the crowded room, leaning against the frame and thumbing the ring Ben had given him that day. It’s smooth and warm where it turns around his finger, somehow feeling like it’s been there forever. He catches Ben’s eye and smiles—they haven’t had a single minute to speak since being assimilated into Leia’s small army, but it doesn’t make Hux anxious like it might have once. He feels like he really does have forever waiting there on the horizon, and that he’s done his best to be true to the lesson he learned from Brendol’s passing—say what you mean while you still have time. He’d done that. He’d told Ben he loved him, and now here they are, and Hux knows that no matter what happens in the future, he won’t have to regret letting Ben Solo slip through his fingers.

Hux is so lost in thought that he misses his mother drifting across the kitchen toward him until she’s pressing a glass of tea into his hand. She’s squeezed half a lemon into it, letting the rinds float there on the surface, just the way Hux likes.

“You look like you’re having a nice daydream,” she says.

Hux smiles, taking a sip of his tea. “Just happy,” he says.

Aislain matches his smile, although there’s something a bit anxious about the set of eyes. “You sure you’re not too disappointed about things?”

“I was,” Hux admits. “But I have Ben.”

The concern fades away from Aislain’s face, replaced by a glow that makes Hux feel like he’s finally learned some kind of lesson about life that his mother had always wanted him to grasp.

“There’s always something in every situation that is the most important,” she says. “And you can get through anything as long as you know what that is.”

“Wise words, Ma,” Hux says, leaning forward to plant a kiss on her forehead.

“I’ve learned a thing or two in my old age,” she says, patting him.

“You’re not old,” he tells her, but Aislain on scoffs and hustles Hux farther into the kitchen with instructions to make himself some lunch.

  


It’s early evening before Hux finally gets a moment alone with Ben. Hux is on the front lawn again, fitting the plug for a string of fairy lights into the extension cord socket when he hears soft footfalls behind him. Glancing around, he sees Ben walking barefoot through the grass, hair pulled up in a bun and cell phone in his hand.

“Hey, stranger,” Hux says.

Ben’s answering smile is quick, like he was just thinking the same thing. “I was beginning to think we were doing the whole ‘can’t see the bride before the ceremony’ thing.”

Hux raises both eyebrows. “I suppose I’m the bride in this scenario.”

Ben reaches him and catches him around the waist with both arms, pulling Hux flush against his chest and burying his nose in Hux’s neck. “I missed you,” he says.

Hux leans into Ben, feeling the warmth of Ben’s cheek against his skin. “You still running a fever?” he asks.

“I’m okay,” Ben says.

“You’d tell me you were okay if you broke all four limbs,” Hux says with a huff.

He feels Ben smile, and then squeaks when Ben nips his neck with his teeth. Hux swats at his head and pulls away.

“I am not getting married with a hickey,” he growls, backing toward the tree.

Ben follows him, crowding him up against the tree trunk so that they are once more pressed together. His lips are on Hux’s neck again, working small kisses up to his ear.

“I’ll just have to leave one where no one will see it,” he says, stroking his hand down Hux’s side and palming his ass.

Hux wriggles away again, cheeks hot. “Knock it off,” he says, laughing. “Maybe I do need to ban you from seeing me until tomorrow.”

Ben doesn’t let him get away, catching him by the hem of his shirt and pulling him back. Hux relents, settling into his embrace with his back to Ben’s broad chest.

“I don’t want to go a day without seeing you,” Ben murmurs.

“Me either,” Hux says with a soft sigh. He holds up the slim, green surge protector. “Now pray this works.

He flicks the switch and the branches of the oak tree light up, sparkling in the dusk. Hux smiles with relief, letting out a deep breath. The lights are pale blue and white, glittering like tiny stars caught in the canopy.

“This time tomorrow we’ll be married,” Hux says dreamily.

Ben’s arms tighten around him. “And then every day after that,” he says.

“I still haven’t written my vows,” Hux admits.

“Me either,” Ben says. “But I think it won’t be that hard. We can just say the things that are true about why we love each other. We don’t have to make any of that up or make it sound better than it already is.”

Hux’s eyes start to swim and he blinks the moisture away. “Yeah. I guess it doesn’t really get better, huh?”

“No,” Ben says, kissing his head. “That’s the most important thing.”

From the porch behind them, Ben’s mother shouts across the lawn for them to come in for supper. There’re casseroles to be eaten and more plans to be finalized, and then tomorrow this would all finally come together.

Hux leaves the lights on in the tree and he and Ben walk across the lawn together, holding hands.

 

* * *

Sunday

 

Ben tries to stand still as Han straightens the Windsor knot of Ben’s tie, adjusting it at the base of his neck. Ben can’t help feeling like a kid who’s about to be let out of school for the summer, on the cusp of a long stretch of days that are full of possibilities and sunlight and freedom. He’d thought he would be nervous, afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and embarrassing himself, and while there’s an undercurrent of that, he’s mostly excited. Ready for all of this to be not an idea or a plan, but a reality.

“You look happy, kid,” Han says, smoothing the tie down over Ben’s chest and stepping back.

Ben glances at himself in the mirror, brushing his fingers over the knot and realizing that they’re trembling just a bit. Maybe he’s more nervous than he thought.

“I am happy,” he tells his father, turning back. Han is wearing a tux and looks far younger than his seventy years, salt and pepper hair freshly trimmed and neatly styled.

“That’s all we ever wanted for you,” Han says. “That, more than anything else.”

Ben takes a deep breath and picks his vest up from the bed. It’s a dark navy and black paisley print, the pattern subtle. He buttons it slowly, making sure not to accidentally tug a button free at the worst possible moment.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I just had to find my own way there.” He looks at Han, who holds Ben’s black jacket out to him. “On my own terms.”

“You’re like your mother that way,” Han says.

Ben shrugs into his jacket and shakes his head, smiling. “No. I’m like you, that way.”

Han’s eyes seem to mist over, but he clears his throat and looks at his watch so Ben can’t be sure.

“It’s about that time,” he says, crossing to the door. He puts a hand on the knob, but waits to turn it. “You ready to do this?”

Ben takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, smooths both hands over his hair, then nods. “I’m ready.”

It’s slightly strange, walking through the quiet house. All morning and all afternoon the place had been buzzing with activity, laughter and excited chatter, but now everything is still. Everyone is outside waiting, Ben knows—waiting for Ben and Hux.

“I’ll see you out there,” Han says when they reach the first floor. He pats Ben on the back and hurries past.

Ben knows the only person that will be left in the house now is Hux. They’d talked about all the different ways this part could go—one of them waiting outside for the other, teasing Hux about walking down the aisle, but in the end they’d decided on this. Just the two of them.

Ben had helped Hux pick out his suit, had seen him wearing it before when it was being tailored, but it still takes his breath away when he sees him standing there in the foyer. Hux looks more anxious than Ben feels, facing away from Ben and peering through the window. He turns around just as Ben is about to say his name, and Ben sees his own sense of awe reflected on Hux’s face.

“You look gorgeous,” Hux breathes.

Ben feels himself blush, knowing that no one else could have paid him that compliment to the same effect. Hux would always be the person that made him feel like a teenager with a crush.

“So do you,” he murmurs, shuffling close to Hux and leaning in for a kiss.

Hux ducks away, laughing. “No. We have to save one pure thing for our wedding day.”

Ben smirks. “It’s way too late for that.”

Now it’s Hux’s turn to blush. They’d spent about two hours that morning having incredible sex, and there’s not a single place on Hux’s body that Ben hasn’t touched today.

Hux reaches out and catches Ben’s hand, twining their fingers together. “I’m still not sure this isn’t all a dream,” he says softly.

Ben squeezes his hand. “If it is, it’s a good one, and I don’t want to wake up.”

Hux brightens, some of the anxiety leaving his face. “Me either.”

“Then let’s go do this,” Ben says, reaching out and opening the door so they can walk through it together.

  


Everyone is standing as they cross the lawn hand in hand. It’s been a beautiful day, sunny and breezy, and it’s just past five in the evening. The lights in the oak tree are a subtle sparkle in the shadows of the leaves, and they’ll be magical once the sun goes down. Just how Hux had planned it.

Ben remembers picking music out with Hux months ago, but that was something else that had gone with the venue that flooded. There hadn’t been a good enough sound system for it on such short notice outside, and Hux had said they could just go without it, but Rey wouldn’t hear of it. She’d brought her acoustic guitar, and while later Ben wouldn’t remember the song she played, at the moment it’s perfect—dreamy and light and full of bright notes, like the summer day itself had come alive as music.

The gathering of friends and family isn’t somber, isn’t waiting quietly like this is a reverent affair that required silence. Above the sound of Rey’s guitar, there’s a murmur of happy voices, and Ben thinks it feels like approaching a little bubble of joy and good wishes instead of a formal audience—a cocoon where he and Hux will be wrapped up in love and hope for their future while their families watch them change into this new thing that they are about to become.

Hux’s palm is clammy in Ben’s, and he’s squeezing it tightly as they approach the oak. Everyone begins to take their seats except Luke, who beams at them both from his place before the tree. He’s wearing a long, white robe and has an embroidered blue stole draped over his shoulders, and his smile disappears beneath his thick mustache when he smiles at Ben.

Luke spreads both arms wide, gesturing them close, and as the two of them take their places, the guitar goes quiet and for a few seconds the only sounds are the susurrus of the oak leaves and the trill of songbirds and the sound of Ben’s heart in his own ears. He hasn’t let go of Hux’s hand yet, and decides he isn’t going to.

Linking his hands before him, Luke gazes at Ben and Hux in turn, the sweeps the gathering with his eyes. Ben’s pulse is racing, and he has no idea what his uncle, whom he hadn’t spoken to in years before last night, is about to say.

“I could,” Luke says, meeting Ben’s eyes, “speak volumes about how special my nephew is and how I always knew this day would come, but I’ll save the embarrassing speech for the reception and your woman of honor.”

“Oh I’m ready,” Phasma calls from behind them, and everyone laughs. Ben does too, realizing the punch of air from his lungs might be the first time he’s breathed since leaving the house.

Luke is smiling, waiting for silence before he goes on. “This ceremony here today is not going to change anything about these two. It isn’t going to create something that doesn’t already exist.” He pauses, looking at them both as though measuring the truth of his words, then nods his head thoughtfully. “I know at some point in life, everyone has had to face challenges alone, but now you have each other. You’ll face everything in life together. No matter where the universe takes you or what you see on the horizon, you won’t be alone. As a symbol of that, you’ve chosen to exchange rings?”

They’d decided to carry the rings themselves, pressed close to the heart in an inner pocket of their jackets, and they each draw them out. Ben’s feels warm and heavy as Hux slips it on his finger, and Hux’s fingers tremble as Ben slides his ring on to rest next to the engagement band glittering black and silver in the sun.

Luke dips a hand into his pocket then and draws out the white and green braided cord that he’d shown them the night before. He’d made it after Ben had asked him to officiate, and says the embroidered words are a Celtic blessing on one side, and Hebrew on the other.

“We are,” Luke says, holding the cord out and waiting for Ben and Hux to clasp both hands together so that Luke can twine it around them, “uniting two lives. Two pasts and two futures that are now on the same path.”

Ben glances up and meets Hux’s eyes, smiling. He doesn’t feel anxious anymore. Only glad.

“You’d like to say your own words?” Luke prompts gently, stepping back.

Ben watches Hux’s green eyes go round and sees him bite his bottom lip, and Ben knows he’s nervous.

“Neither one of us knew what we were going to say today,” Ben says, stepping in to pave the path for them both. He feels Hux squeeze his hand gratefully. “But I told Hux it would come to us.” He keeps his gaze on Hux, and feels the words settle in his heart. “I feel a thousand emotions right now, but at the center of that all is peace. I’ve spent a lifetime being unsure of my direction, not knowing who I was or who I wanted to be. Maybe I still don’t have everything figured out, but I know that Hux calms the chaos in my soul. I feel serenity with him. Harmony. And that is the force I want to drive my life. The thing I want at the center of everything I do.”

Hux’s nose is pink and tears are glistening on his translucent eyelashes. He wrinkles his forehead with a short, anxious laugh. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to follow that up,” he says. “I didn’t know Ben was a poet.”

A soft murmur of laughter ripples through the gathering and fades back into silence. Now Ben’s nose tingles, and he has to resist the urge to tug Hux to him and kiss him now.

“I know that the future will be full of good things and bad, just like it is for anyone,” Hux goes on, finally relaxing his hands enough to stroke his thumb over Ben’s “But I will be there for you through it all. If there’s darkness, I’ll be there. I’ll pull the sun down from the sky to light your way back if I have to.”

Ben’s vision swims, Hux’s promise settling into a deeply personal place in his soul.

“I won’t ever turn away from you,” Hux goes on, more quietly now and choked with tears. “I love the man you are and I’ll love the man you will be when we’re old.”

There’s more than one sniffle from the crowd, and Hux’s face is a dusky pink as he looks pointedly at Luke. Ben’s uncle smiles, stepping forward and laying both hands over theirs.

“The only thing I have to follow that up with,” Luke says, “is congratulations. By what powers are vested in me here today and the authority of the good state of Georgia, I pronounce you married in the eyes of your family, your friends, and the law of this land.”

Their first kiss as a married couple is to the sound of applause, and both of them tremble a bit as they find a way to hold onto each other. Ben’s fingers frame Hux’s face as their lips meet, and Hux’s are curled tight in the lapels of Ben’s jacket.

For just a moment, there’s nothing else in the world but them, and when Hux whispers against Ben’s lips, he doesn’t hear anything else.

“We did it,” he murmurs.

Ben smiles, nuzzling him, looping his arms around Hux’s waist and pulling him close. “We did. I’m glad.”

“Me too,” Hux sniffs. “I’m happy we found each other.”

Ben kisses Hux’s damp cheek, just beneath his eye. “Me too,” he says. “But I think I was always going to find you.”

“You really think that?” Hux’s fingers comb Ben’s hair back from his face and he looks into his eyes. “That we’re soulmates and we’d have found each other even if Phasma hadn’t been there?”

Ben nods. “Everything about my life feels like it led up to that day we met. Like everything I’d been running from brought me all the way to your door in Chicago.”

Hux smiles, his face glowing. “Now you can rest,” he says, touching their foreheads together. “Because you’re home.”

Ben’s chest feels light as he looks at his husband, and knows those words are true. He _is_ home.

They both are.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr.](http://kyluxtrashcompactor.tumblr.com/)


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